All Is Ready

The Lesser Arcane Nourishment Elixir gave a spellcaster who drank it one additional 1st-level spell slot for twenty-four hours.

The Mechanized Mind Potion was something Marvin urgently needed right now.

As its name suggested, after drinking it, one's mind would become like a machine, greatly strengthening resistance to all manner of enchantment spells and allowing one to withstand psychic attacks as well.

Whether dealing with Cranium Rats or possibly facing Mind Flayers in the future, this potion could be the key to deciding victory or defeat.

Its side effect was that the drinker's speech and behavior would become robotic and stiff, while their charisma would plummet.

In the end, Marvin traded six Shield scrolls, four Mage Armor scrolls, and four Alarm scrolls for the alchemy manual.

The total price came to 420 gold coins.

If he had wanted to buy the formulas for those two potions in Baldur's Gate, Marvin would have had to spend at least 1,000 gold coins.

He had made a huge profit by taking advantage of the other party's urgent need for money.

Kyle beamed, waved at Marvin and the bald shopkeeper, then headed straight for the Waukeen Temple across the street.

It seemed he still needed a loan to prepare for his next adventure.

A sorcerer who had once been able to throw around money so freely had been reduced to taking out a loan after just one failure.

Kyle's extravagant spending habits were certainly part of the reason.

But it also mercilessly laid bare the high risks of adventuring before Marvin.

As expected, it's safer to lie low and develop steadily in a small town. If I'm not fully prepared, I won't make a move, Marvin thought.

He walked to the counter. "Borey, you just watched Kyle buy scrolls directly from me? If you'd acted as the middleman in that transaction, you could've made at least seventy gold coins."

"Marvin, you can see it too. My life has long been like a candle guttering in the wind. My greatest mission now isn't making money, cough, cough, cough..." The bald man broke into another violent fit of coughing.

Marvin did not press him further and instead listed the ingredients needed to brew the Mechanized Mind Potion.

"Hmm... We have plenty of the other ingredients. It's just that we only have five bottles of Modron Essence left in the shop," Borey said as he looked over the list.

Modrons were constructs that lived in Mechanus.

Under the orders of Singularity, the ruler of Mechanus, Modron armies launched expeditions into other planes roughly once every three hundred years.

Millions of Modrons died in every expedition, so the Modron Essence they left behind was not rare. However, because this magical material had such limited applications, most magic shops did not stock much of it.

"I'll take all of it. Also, please restock more Modron Essence as soon as possible."

Marvin had no desire to face powerful enemies like Mind Flayers head-on. But just in case, he still needed to prepare a few more bottles of Mechanized Mind Potion.

"No problem. I'll report it to the young lady as soon as possible," Borey agreed readily.

After buying all the alchemy materials, Marvin returned to the Flaming Fist headquarters.

Brewing magical potions could sometimes be dangerous work. He did not want to conduct alchemical experiments in an inn without professional equipment.

Fortunately, the Flaming Fist headquarters had a fully equipped alchemy room. However, after the Spellplague, mages had become increasingly scarce, so the Flaming Fist had not stationed any in a small place like Friendly Arm.

The alchemy room had been gathering dust ever since.

Liana readily agreed to Marvin's request.

She also opened the Flaming Fist warehouse to him, allowing him to take whatever supplies he needed at any time.

As long as he filled out an application form.

Marvin stayed in the alchemy room and spent two whole days carefully brewing five bottles of Mechanized Mind Potion and one bottle of Lesser Arcane Nourishment Elixir.

He had to thank the original owner's ten years of work in the mage tower for honing his alchemy skill to the proficient level. Otherwise, he would not have been able to achieve zero mistakes.

During those two days, the Flaming Fist had not been idle either. They made intensive preparations according to Marvin's plan.

First, Liana sent out six subordinates to guard the breach in the Friendly Arm Inn Cellar in three shifts.

They set up a simple Flame Trap.

As soon as there was any movement in the secret passage, they would activate the trap and use flames to stop the Cranium Rats from escaping.

Then, at Marvin's request, Liana began mobilizing the town's residents to gather cats.

House cats and stray cats alike were all rounded up and managed together.

Using Speak with Animals, Marvin gave the cats their orders: sweep the entire town for rats, with unlimited dried fish and catnip promised as payment.

After two days of extermination, the town's rat infestation had been wiped out.

The townspeople rarely had anything good to say about the Flaming Fist, but this time they praised them a few times, saying those lords had finally done something useful for the public.

As lackeys of Mind Flayers, the Cranium Rats clearly had ulterior motives for lurking in town.

They could not remain underground all the time. They had to regularly come to the surface to gather information.

A lone Cranium Rat was no more intelligent than an ordinary rat. The information it collected had to be brought back to the colony, where it would be analyzed and processed through their collective intelligence.

When faced with their natural predator, cats, lone Cranium Rats naturally stood no chance.

Afterward, Marvin gathered all the rat corpses and mobilized everyone to sift through them for Cranium Rats.

They were easy to identify by appearance. A careful look would reveal that Cranium Rats had a noticeable bulge on their foreheads compared to ordinary rats.

At first, the Flaming Fist soldiers complained bitterly about the filthy task. But when they saw Liana take the lead and plunge into the pile of rats, then curse, "Stop whining like bitches," they could only get to work obediently.

After counting them, they found that the cats had killed a total of thirty-seven Cranium Rats.

Marvin then brought the Cranium Rat corpses to Kelemvor's temple and had the priests use the 3rd-level divine spell Speak with Dead to extract useful information.

It cost a total of 150 gold coins, paid for by the Flaming Fist.

The casting requirements for Speak with Dead were that the target could not have been undead at the time of death and had to possess a mouth.

Cranium Rats naturally met both requirements.

Although a single Cranium Rat lacked the intelligence for effective communication.

The brains of the thirty-seven Cranium Rats still formed a local network through faint psychic power after death, giving them roughly an Intelligence score of 8.

"Mentally deficient" would be a fitting description of their intellect.

It was difficult, but they could at least communicate.

It was like arguing online with brainless trolls before his transmigration. Marvin carefully chose his words and exhausted his brainpower, finally using the five questions provided by Speak with Dead to obtain a crucial piece of intelligence:

The Cranium Rat colony numbered 107 in total!

After the cats' great extermination, only seventy Cranium Rats remained.

According to Volo's Guide to Monsters, a colony of one hundred Cranium Rats had an Intelligence score of 16. It was a powerful spellcaster capable of casting 4th-level spells and unleashing Mind Blast every thirty seconds.

A colony of seventy Cranium Rats only had an Intelligence score of 14, could cast 2nd-level spells, and could unleash Mind Blast once every minute.

The cats' extermination campaign had greatly weakened the enemy.

Marvin's chances of success had risen as well.

Moreover, after this incident, the Cranium Rat colony no longer dared send members to the surface to scout, making it easier to wipe them all out afterward.

Marvin then spent another three days using Mold Earth to seal every rat hole near the Friendly Arm Inn.

At last, everything was ready.