Anything in the basements of the castle and below had not been considered to be a hospitable quarter for living, but Edward Eisen embraced the location with open arms. He worked with servants to clear out the vast open space, removing cobwebs, forgotten parts and supplies that had been rotting down there for quite some time.

  When that was said and done, the doctor’s meager amount of belongings were hauled down, and Eisen began the tedious work of unpacking and organizing.

  New furniture and supplies were brought in to compliment Eisen’s own items, and before long, it was starting to look like a laboratory.

  Edward sat on a rolling chair. He leaned down, unpacked a fresh box of glass beakers, and began lining them up on a work desk in front of him. Later, he was found filing his commentaries on medicine into new bookshelves. It would take him a while to get this lab into a state that he could appreciate.

  Eventually though, and after several days, just that had been accomplished. Eisen took a step back to admire his new home. This room – this basement – was his home now. Not the castle, but this isolated section specifically.

  He couldn’t care less about the affairs of anything going on above him. All he cared about was down in the basement now, especially now that he was in possession of Marin’s lab notes.

  Research was going great for a while. Being granted all the funding he needed for equipment and supplies certainly made progress accelerate. Of course, payment for all of it came calling in the form of waiting on patients.

  It didn’t take more than a few days for the first citizen of the castle to ring the buzzer to his basement quarters. He was quick to treat some common symptoms and resume his research, but the word spread from the first patient about how good the new doctor was, and soon, Eisen was being interrupted regularly by patients complaining about the smallest issues.

  It didn’t take long for Edward to realize that being a doctor was his first job, and being the mad scientist that he truly embraced came second. While he accepted these undesirable circumstances, it didn’t stop him from being upset about it.

  Despite his rather strong feelings about being the Kingdom’s doctor, his pride to was too high for it to stop him from giving the most outstanding service he could. Eisen frequently had negative things to say while treating the castle denizens, but at the same time his work on them was impeccable.

  Almost everyone could get past a grumpy doctor if it meant the most high quality service possible.

  It had now been more than a week at Nocturne for Edward Eisen. He had been completely unaware of RAM’s visit, as he was for almost all events that took place. Due to his food being brought to him from the kitchen, Eisen hadn’t set foot outside the basement labs nearly the whole time he had been down there. He hadn’t even seen Marin since he obtained his notes from him several days ago.

  At the moment, Eisen was in his chair, hunched over the desk, fixated on the notes. On the left was Marin’s old tattered notes, reaching the point of illegibility, while on the right, was his own notebook, writing his own up-to-date version of what he made out.

  “There’s no way he used Uburtus for the stabilizer. There’s no way,” he quietly said to himself as he wrote it down.

  Several times, Eisen was so impressed by Marin’s unique, innovative uses of ingredients, that he had to cross reference them in his own books to make sure it was even possible to use them that way.

  Much of the basic building blocks for the master potion Eisen understood. It wasn’t until the advanced transformation of the ingredients through chemical reactions that would get the Doctor to scratch his head.

  “...That’s interesting,” Eisen stated as he read Marin’s use for the organic cell gateway formula, which was used to insert payloads into a user’s DNA for alteration.

  Eisen had several books open all over the desk.

  Every line of instruction Marin had written out, was cross-referenced with his own books. His eyes intently darted left and right as he wrote more notes, and refreshed his knowledge on extremely complex methods he hadn’t studied since he was a young one.

  “Now how would this react so-”

  BZZZZT!!!!!

  The sound of Eisen’s patient buzzer shook him to his core, as the abrupt noise pulled him out of a deep trance of his thought process.

  Eisen cursed to himself as he was forced to yet again, stop his work to give service to someone. He rocketed out of his chair, and walked across the basement to the patient greeting area in a smaller room.

  Pacing down a short hallway, the doctor reached the small entrance room where he saw a man standing near the front desk and buzzer.

  It was Phil.

  “Alright, what’s going on?” Eisen quickly asked, eager to get his new patient solved and on their way.

  “Uh… hi. You’re the doctor, right?” Phil tried.

  “Yes. Who are you?” Eisen followed up.

  “My name’s Phil. My friend Rocko said I should come see you. Because I keep coughin’ and-” Phil indeed started coughing really hard.

  “Fine, come with me,” Eisen commanded as he walked back down the hallway.

  Another case of the common cold, I’m sure, Eisen figured to himself. At least it’s an easy one to care for.

  Phil lagged behind, scared at the weird looking doctor and spooky basement setting.

  When Eisen made it to his main quarters, he approached a patient chair and table set up by the entrance. He turned around, and saw Phil was only moving forward in inches, nervously scratching his wrists.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Phil. Come sit down.” Eisen could now see that Phil was not an exceptionally smart person, and could tell that he was intimidated.

  “I don’t bite, I promise,” he told Phil. “Now, let’s get a look at you.” Eisen was sparing the nervous young man his usual up-front and direct attitude for a more gentle one.

  “...Okay,” Phil managed as he sat down in the chair.

  A lantern from the ceiling hung down close to the table, brightly illuminating the patient.

  The Doctor grabbed several items from the other side of his room, and reunited with Phil at the table.

  “Now, you said your friend told you to come down here?” Eisen asked as he laid out some equipment at the table.

  “Yeah. Rocko’s said my coughing has been keeping him awake at night, but I can’t help it. I gotta cough.”

  Eisen told Phil to open his mouth. He titled his head toward the lantern, and with a wooden flat stick, looked down his throat.

  “Rocko… Phil…” Eisen thought as he studied. “I think I remember you two from earlier when Marin returned to the castle.”

  He pulled the stick out of his mouth.

  “Yeah, you’re definitely sore. Too much coughing. Let me check your temperature.”

  Eisen did several tests on Phil. They were all quite typical to the doctor at this point. Mild stuff such as this was all he ever did. No one had challenged him yet with something as complex as a brain tumor, internal bleeding… Heck, he’d even take a third arm growing out of someone if it meant doing something new for once.

  “You’re sick. You have the flu. You need bed rest. And of course…” Eisen stood up as he walked to the back of his room.

  He grabbed a glass bottle, one of many he had made up earlier on a shelf.

  “...This cough syrup. Take two spoonfuls now,” Eisen finished as he handed Phil a spoon.

  Phil struggled to get the cap off, but when he did, he managed to pour a clean amount, and stuck it in his mouth.

  Phil repulsed, swallowing the concoction as quick as he could. “It tastes horrible!” He shared.

  “Sorry. I was too lazy to add some sort of sweetener. Perhaps I’ll add strawberries down the road. Do you like those?” Eisen asked.

  Phil went bleh as he finished a second spoon, not able to answer in the present moment.

  “That will get you to stop coughing. Now, I want you taking two more spoons before bed, and every night after for three days. Then see me again and I’ll see how you feel. Also, stay away from work during that time. Did you get all that?”

  Phil definitely did not get all that.

  Eisen sighed. “Hold on.”

  He went back over to his desk, and wrote a note describing all of what he said. He also wrote an exclusive doctor’s note for Phil to inform someone of his order to keep Phil out of work until later.

  “This one’s for you, and give this to whoever decides what work you do each day, got it?” Eisen asked while handing Phil the two papers.

  Phil nodded.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Alright then, off with you. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  “Okay!” Phil answered, not seeming anywhere as scared as he once was when he first entered the room.

  Eisen saw Phil out of his quarters. When he looked down the hallway to find that no one else was around, he knew he was alone again, and could resume his research.

  He cracked his fingers as he sat back down, which hurt from time to time due to arthritis and age. If he could get this potion figured out, he wouldn’t have to worry about deteriorating health anymore.

  It would be his greatest accomplishment.

  Minutes turned to hours as he deep dived. Eisen wrote out instructions, schematics, and ingredient lists of what he would need. He had transferred almost all of Marin’s notes over to his own.

  He couldn’t believe the complexity and intuition Marin had to have in order to write these formulas. He almost wondered if it was someone other than the King who had made it all. Was Marin truly so clever at one point to have figured all this out?

  Nearing the end of rewriting the notes, Eisen discovered something quite outstanding. He read the ingredient name. He stared at it.

  “No… It cannot be…” He uttered to himself.

  He jumped up, and ran over to his bookshelf. He scanned and scanned, but couldn’t find what he was looking for. Eventually he pulled out an old book that was falling apart, and he leafed through it.

  He then checked the index in the back as a final attempt.

  “Bah!” He closed the book and put it back. He kept looking over his library desperately. Each title going down each spine did not match what he needed.

  After a while, he had reached a conclusion.

  “I don’t even have a book on that.”

  Eisen sat back down, head in his hands.

  The doctor knew that nearly all the ingredients he needed for this potion would have to be ordered. Some would take months to arrive. But this one, this one was impossible to order, and there was a good chance it didn’t exist anymore.

  His eyes darted about as he thought about a substitute, but there was nothing that came to mind. There was a very real chance that-

  BZZZZZTTT!!!!

  “WHAT?!” The doctor yelled out.

  After a moment that seemed like an eternity, a maid’s meek voice piped up. “...Your dinner is here, doctor…”

  Eisen shook his head, trying to regain his composure. He got up, and headed to the hallway.

  “Forgive me,” Eisen stated as he paced to the front to acquire his meal. “I didn’t mean that outburst. The time has really gotten away from me.”

  Meanwhile, back on the castle floors above Eisen’s reclusive dwelling, dinner was occurring in the dining room. In typical fashion, Marin sat at the end of the table as his friends ate. Everyone acted as they normally did, but Marin had much on his mind.

  He conversed with them as he normally did, but the RAM inspection with the Director ruled his mind. Marin kept thinking about the name John Reech. He didn’t have knowledge of him, but for some reason, it seemed just barely familiar. He did everything he could to remember, thinking in detail of anything from his past, trying his hardest to grasp even the most trivial personal memory.

  After dinner, Marin was found in his quarters. It wasn’t every night that Loid paid him a visit, but it sure seemed that way sometimes. After a knock, Loid was allowed in, and both of them talked in detail about the things troubling the King.

  Not remembering his life from before was certainly annoying, but the bare familiarity of the name John Reech was torturing him more than anything.

  “Let’s go pay Edward Eisen a visit. I understand he’s adamantly working on the immortality potion, but I want to see if he has any knowledge in the realm of memory restoration.”

  “Is that even a thing?” Loid asked.

  “I don’t know. But if there’s something to know about anything, its him,” Marin said with great confidence.

  It was a trip down many levels, but after a solid ten minutes of walking, they were at the staircase leading to the basement.

  “Have you even seen him once since he’s been here?” Loid said.

  “Just once to give him my lab notes. Since then, he hasn’t been out of the basement. Honestly though, I expected nothing less from him after seeing his home in Tarenfall,” Marin explained.

  Loid wondered how bad Eisen’s house had to have looked.

  The staircase led down half way, then did a U-turn to lower down the rest of the way. Following the basement hallway, to the immediate left was a door. Above the door with a lantern hanging, was a sign that read “Doctor”. Opening this brought you to Eisen’s front patient room, with a small desk and a buzzer sitting on that.

  Marin gave the buzzer a ring, the same device that brought constant interruption to the doctor’s thought process.

  Marin had to admit the sound was quite abrupt.

  “Office is closed for the night! Come back tomorrow unless its a dire emergency!”

  Marin could hear the doctor’s strangled voice echo down the hallway from the side.

  “It’s me, Doctor. Loid is here as well,” Marin shouted out.

  “...Is it now?

  Well, come on in, then.”

  Marin and Loid walked past the desk of the small entrance room, and down the hall that opened up into the vast basement chamber that served as Eisen’s lab, patient care center, and personal dwelling.

  Eisen was sitting at his desk with his back turned. The single lantern illuminated the location he sat at.

  “How are things, Doctor?” Marin asked as he approached.

  “Well, they’re things,” Eisen stated in a hint of good and bad.

  “Would you care to elaborate?” Marin followed up with.

  Edward sighed. He wheeled around to face the two of them.

  “Come sit at the table,” Eisen said sullenly.

  All three were now at the Doctor’s patient table. Eisen lit the lantern above that table once again, after he had just recently blown it out, believing no one would be at said table again for the night.

  “For one, your timing was pretty good. I have some things I need to report,” the Doctor started, as he tightened his loose pony tail on the back of his head.

  “I’m eager for your assessment,” Marin tried.

  “First of all, your notes were nearly decayed to the point where I couldn’t read them. I had to rewrite them all on fresh paper, and had trouble doing so I tried discerning illegible parts.

  I managed that, though. Your knowledge of alchemy had once been top tier, I can tell you that, Marin. It shocks me, actually, that you had the time you did to conduct such a complicated series of formulas for the potion, seeing as you had other major responsibilities at the time.”

  “It was certainly my number one passion project. I yearned for immortality more than anything else in the world,” Marin explained. “But if you’re alluding to an idea that perhaps I didn’t come up with the formula, or maybe had assistance in developing it, you might be right,” Marin admitted.

  Loid’s eyes widened. Why wasn’t this possibility addressed to him before?

  “Ah!” Eisen exclaimed. “So it is possible you had help!”

  “It is.”

  “Alright, well, then that brings things more into a scope of realism. Anyways though, after drafting all the instructions and formulas into my own handwriting, I developed a list of all ingredients needed for the potion,” Eisen explained.

  “I imagine it would be quite the exotic list,” Loid commented.

  “Indeed it is! A lot of the stuff is pricey, and comes from the other side of the world. But I have to tell you both, there is one ingredient required that isn’t around anymore. It can’t be bought on the market,” Eisen said.

  Marin lowered his head. Great. Another road block.

  “Not only that, I have one other thing I have to tell you both, and this is the worst part of it all,” Eisen added.

  Marin prepared himself for the worst, whatever that would be. If it was an admittance that the Doctor couldn’t recreate the potion, he would understand. If he said that his condition was impossible to be reversed, he would have to accept his fate.

  “Your notes were all there, Marin, minus one page,” Eisen stated with dread.

  “Really?”

  “The page that is missing is the final one. The master formula that brings everything together into the final result. I can have everything else ready to go, but without the final formula, I wouldn’t know what to do with everything I have,” Eisen explained.

  “Would you be able to figure out what the formula is with all the context you have?” Marin asked as a consolation.

  Eisen laughed. “That’s the real trick, ain’t it? Give me a bar of iron, a piece of straw… eh, throw in a piece of rubber. And then tell me to make book out of it. That’s essentially what we’re working with.”

  “It’s that bad, eh?” Marin spoke.

  “Let’s just say that the preparation alone for this potion is cutting edge. Even getting everything prepared for the final result alone is quite an undertaking. Discovering the perfect balance of it all would truly be a feat of intelligence,” Eisen explained.

  Loid was drumming his fingers on the table, doing his best to keep track of everything that was being said. It was all above his paygrade.

  Marin on the other hand was coming to terms with the bad news.

  “...But, don’t think for a second that will stop me. I will spend all my free time trying to recreate the formula. I will do all the math and calculations I need to replicate what you did, my friend,” Eisen added.

  Marin nodded. That was good news. The stubborn doctor wouldn’t be defeated so easily.

  “How long will that take?” Marin asked.

  “Months… Years… A decade? However long it takes,” Eisen responded.

  “Well if that’s the case, and this has moved into a long term project, I was wondering if you would be able to help me with something slightly different,” Marin humbly asked.

  Eisen raised an eyebrow in silence.

  “I want to regain my memory. Is there any methods for doing so?” Marin forced himself to say.

  Eisen leaned back with a grin. “I was wondering if that was ever going to be something you’d ask me. Unfortunately, there is no exact way in doing so. I have some methods I could use to try and jolt your noggin into remembering something, but I don’t think in your state its a very good idea.”

  Marin nodded. It was worth a shot.

  After a silent moment of pondering though, Eisen had more to say.

  “...Well, there’s one thing I could try. You see, sometimes when people experience temporary memory loss, a good night’s sleep fixes them right up.”

  “Doctor, a very long sleep is what got me into this situation,” Marin said back.

  “I understand. But that’s not the same type of sleep I’m talking about. You need REM sleep, something you haven’t experienced since you’ve been walking around again.”

  “Inducing Marin into sleep like that could be really risky!” Loid rightfully spoke out. “We don’t know what might happen to him if he falls asleep. There’s a chance he might never wake up.”

  Marin raised a hand to stop Loid.

  There were risks he was willing to take if they had any chance in recovering his past.

  “I’d say its worth a shot,” Marin surprisingly said.

  Eisen looked shocked. “...Okay. I’ll look into it. Give me some time, and I’ll see what I can whip up for you. It might even aid in the recollection of the master formula.”