Chapter VIII: Chocolate Milk
The rhinoceros guards shoved the Master past the door and into the alchemy laboratory. The walls of the laboratory were lined with shelves full of scrolls, alchemy ingredients and various strange chemicals of every color. Rows of tables were placed across the room. Scattered throughout the room were cauldrons of all sizes and many jars, vials, utensils and beakers.
"Afternoon, Golden Lead! Afternoon, Pyro!" one of the guards said. Then a rhino popped her head out from behind a table, followed by a smaller head. "You have a little something on your face there, Pyro."
"Oh, better wipe that off." the smaller rhino said.
"Sorry if we kept you waiting." the larger rhino said. "Pyro dropped a jar of grasshopper legs and made a huge mess." She took off her lab goggles and greeted the guards. "Afternoon, sirs. How can I help?"
"This pony," the other guard said scornfully, "is given royal permission to be here by His Highness, Emperor Bluehorn. You are to assist this pony with whatever alchemy he asks for."
The guards let the Master go and left the room, closing the door behind them. The larger rhino wiped her horn with a towel and approached the Master.
"Hm. A pony." she said, as she inspected the Master. She circled around him, observing his wings, hooves, tail, mane and cutie mark. "Pardon me, it's been years since I've had a chance to study a pony." She took out a notebook and drew a sketch of the Master's fob watch cutie mark. She finished, put away the notebook and said, "Well, if the Emperor trusts you, I'm sure we can too. Hello. I'm Golden Lead. This is my little brother Pyro."
The Master shook hooves with Golden Lead, and then with Pyro. Golden Lead was a tall rhino with a short white horn and a cutie mark of a circle with a dot at the center. Pyro was a short young rhino with a relatively long yellow horn for his age and a cutie mark of an equilateral triangle. Both wore dragon-skin aprons over their backs and chests for protection.
"What do you need?" Golden Lead said.
The Master started taking a few steps towards the two rhinos as he spoke. "My name is Tympanus. I'm here to assist His Royal Highness in ending this war."
"Why come to us then?" Pyro said, "Why would you help Hoofrica instead of your own kingdom? Are you a spy?"
The Master put his hoof to his face at Pyro's questions and grumbled, "Ugh, not again."
"Relax, Pyro," Golden Lead said as she put her hoof on her brother's shoulder, "His Highness probably already interrogated him, and I suppose he found him trustworthy."
Pyro stopped talking, but continued to watch the Master with suspicion. The Master's calm smile unnerved him, and he could only imagine the worst coming from giving a strange pony like him access to rhino alchemy.
"Back to the point," the Master said, "In order to finally put an end to this war, which I should mention has been bringing terror and suffering for centuries, I need to become an alicorn. I need an alicorn's horn and wings."
"Ridiculous!" Pyro interrupted, "Sis, you can't let him have power like that!"
"Hush, Pyro!" Golden Lead scolded. She too found the request suspicious, but the Emperor ordered her and Pyro to help the foreigner, and so she had no choice but to trust the Emperor's judgment. "But, why would you need to become an alicorn?"
"The power of the kingdom of the ponies rests on King Concordius' authority over the Sun and Moon. If I become an alicorn, I can challenge his control, and give power over day and night to Hoofrica."
Golden Lead nodded to Pyro and he went and looked through the bookshelves, searching for a book transformation potions. He found one on the highest shelf and levitated it down. It was a dusty old book of papyrus paper with a snake-skin cover. The worn down gold-leaf title on the cover said, "Potion Recipes to Change the Form of the Body," and the author was Ziwa, daughter of Mto, son of Maji the Great Sage.
These potions were potions of ancient magic, once mastered only by the zebra shamans long ago. The rhinos imitated the ways of the zebra shamans and turned the art of potions into the science of alchemy; it was easier and less demanding than zebra potions, but lacked the full potential for great power. Golden Lead and Pyro, however, understanding the benefits, studied zebra magic extensively, and, through their superior potions, made their way up the ranks of alchemy to become Emperor Bluehorn's personal alchemists.
"A transformation like that is going to take some pretty powerful magic. That sort of thing would call for a potion with a really really really strong friendship between the brewers." Pyro said.
"But of course," said the Master as he walked further into the laboratory and around the tables, observing the various contraptions, tools, equipment and ingredients. He took a sniff of ground spider legs and had a coughed from the foul odor. "And I'm sure the power of the friendship between you two can create the most wondrous of concoctions. The big sister and the little brother, such a fine friendship. I'm sure it will do."
Golden Lead looked through the book Pyro found, delicately flipping pages with her magic. This book was a priceless antique and precious source of knowledge hundreds of years old. She saw potions for transforming others into another species, potions for disguise, aging potions, gender-changing potions, among many others. After a few minutes of searching, she finally found the potion recipe that seemed closest to providing what the Master asked for. The sections was entitled: "To Steal Another's Body." The entire beginning page was dedicated to a warning:
"Be wary. This is magic not to be taken lightly. Tamper not with this potion save for when the kingdom be in the most dire of circumstances. The use of this potion by the hooves of those whose hearts are tainted by avarice, malice, deception, infidelity and wrath shall bring about the greatest evil and spawn a monster of chaos."
" Hmmm… There is something here that might do the trick." said Golden Lead, "But it looks a bit shady. I should go consult His Highness before we proceed."
She began walking briskly towards the door, but the Master quickly flew over and blocked her way.
"No, no, no. I'm sure His Highness - may Faust shower her blessings upon him - will be completely fine with whatever we do here. He trusts me completely. And if the potion is as extreme as you seem to make it out to be, well, we have a huge task and it calls for extreme measures."
"But I-"
"You don't want to disappoint His Highness by failing to do your job properly now, do you?"
Golden Lead hesitated to respond. She cannot trust this pony. Whatever she found endearing in him before is all gone, and now all that remains is intimidation. She gave one last attempt to deter him.
"But you'll need an alicorn to take the horn and wings from and the alicorn in turn has to be transformed. And to do that, you need to fill the alicorn with hatred and disharmony, so that even the bonds holding the body together are broken. And King Concordius is the only alicorn in the world and he's very well protected as I'm sure you know. There's no way you can accomplish something like this."
"Getting to Concordius should be no problem." The Master curtly responded, "Just give me the potion, and I'll take care of the rest."
Golden Lead could find nothing else to argue with, so she finally conceded. "Alright then... Pyro, get a little cauldron, about two gallons, and put in the following ingredients."
Pyro reluctantly cleared a table, brought over a two-gallon cauldron and put in the ingredients his sister listed off.
"A deer antler, a goat horn, a dragon fang, a lion paw, an eagle talon, a snake tongue, a lizard leg, a bat wing, a pegasus feather, and a snake tail."
"How in Faust's name do we have all these things?" Pyro asked.
"Some are donations, I'm sure. And some definitely were taken from battlefields. The rest... I don't want to think about it." Golden Lead replied. "And lastly, fill the cauldron up with... chocolate milk? Did I read that right? Hm, how interesting. Chocolate milk it is then."
Pyro opened a cabinet and took out a jug full of chocolate milk.
"Wait, where'd you get all that chocolate milk?" Golden Lead asked.
"I always keep myself a supply of chocolate milk. Can't resist that stuff. Sometimes I wish it would rain chocolate milk."
"I warned Granny about introducing you to chocolate. You have the most ridiculous sweet tooth." And then Golden Lead sighed before continuing giving Pyro instructions. "Alright, Pyro, boil it."
Pyro placed the cauldron over the fire place with a pile of coal and used his magic to light up the coal and the concoction shortly afterwards began to boil. The cauldron shook as the potion boiled, and the vibrations reverberated through the room. The Master smiled as he watched. The cauldron began to spew sparks that crackled loudly, and then the potion began to glow a lime green light. The fire underneath the cauldron then changed into a vibrant flame of many colors and engulfed the cauldron. A burst of wind came from the cauldron and blew the fire away. Now the fire place was empty except for the cauldron and covered in a sheet of frost. Pyro touched the cauldron and it was cold as ice. He took a large jar and filled it with the potion. The liquid was of the same color, smell and consistency as chocolate milk.
Golden Lead took the jar from Pyro and hesitantly handed it to the Master, saying,
"Now to make the transformation occur, as I've said, you have to fill your victim with hatred, anger and despair, leaving only disharmony in his soul and there disharmony in his body. Then you and your victim have to drink the potion together and the same time, and you both will transform."
The Master took the jar, chuckled and exited the room.