Passion (Potion)

> *Death follows, but no others will be as happy as you are to meet it.*
>
>

Passion is a class 3 potion found within The Catalog. It is an extremely strong, highly addictive hallucinogenic drug which causes anyone exposed to it to enter a euphoric state. It is tasteless, odorless, and fast acting (~5 seconds), making it very difficult to detect.

## Origin

Passion was first conceptualized by the Kepian alchemist Vilkan Rainer during the Ascension Wars as a makeshift painkiller meant to sooth the suffering of dying soldiers. Its original form wasn't nearly as potent as its modern variant, and simply acted as a strong painkiller and relaxant.

Originally created as a side product of another medicinal potion that Rainer was attempting to create in bulk, he was unable to figure out the actual primary recipe for Passion until some 20 years later in retirement. The recipe was extremely simplistic, and simply involved boiling three types of plants together: Astral Flowers, Snow Eggs, and Trifloras. All three plants were once relatively common, though the discovery of Passion has since led to the Kepian government destroying them to near extinction.

## Potion Properties

The primary effect of Passion is that it causes an incurable addiction in those who consume it. Those affected by it will undergo strong, vivid hallucinations, achieving a state of euphoria for a short period of time (approximately 1 hour). The dosage required to achieve this state is extremely small, too small in fact to actually physically measure out, and can be absorbed through ingesting, skin contact, inhaling and injection.

The liquid will give of a rainbow hue when shined in the sun, similar to that of soap foam, but is otherwise odorless and tasteless. It will also slowly evaporate into vapor at most temperatures, only retaining liquid form when below freezing temperatures.

Once afflicted by the drug, there is no known way as of current to recover from the addiction that it causes. Individuals who come down from the initial euphoric high will find the sudden decrease in happiness extremely distressing, and will do their best to acquire more of the drug. If they are unable to, they will typically either go insane or commit suicide, often both. If they manage to obtain more, they will inevitably overdose on it, as Passion is toxic to the body when consumed as frequently as many addicts do.

## Exponential Returns

Although Passion is a highly dangerous drug, its effects are not the main reason as to why it received a class 3 classification. Rather, the primary reason is due to it being the only known potion in the world to display a brewing property known as exponential return.

Passion is a very difficult potion to make, generally requiring a highly skilled alchemist to be able to reliably create it. Its primary ingredients are Snow Eggs, Trifloras, and Astral Flowers. Snow Eggs are generally useless outside of a number of very specific potions, as they are extremely vulnerable to high temperature, and generally cant be used except for cold brewing. In contrast, Trifloras require extremely high temperatures for their magical properties to become active.

The Snow Egg needs to enter the brew before the Triflora, so it isn't possible to heat the solution up with the Triflora first and then place the Snow Egg afterwards. Rather, it is necessary to magically shield the Snow Egg in an insulating layer to protect it from the temperature. From there, the insulating layer needs to be periodically opened and then closed, allowing the Snow Egg to dissolve a little bit at a time without the ingredient getting destroyed by the heat.

In addition, the Astral Flower needs to be added while the Snow Egg is dissolving. Astral Flowers are magically corrosive, and will erode the insulating layer, meaning that the magical layering spell must be continuously reinforced while at the same time allowing it to erode enough that the Snow Egg can actually dissolve. The range of strengths that the layer can have while satisfying both requirements is extremely narrow, and generally can't be done except by highly skilled experts.

Once the above steps have been followed, the solution will stabilize into a liquid catalyst. By agitating it with mana, it will convert itself into Passion. The liquid catalyst is what displays exponential returns. By adding an equal amount of all three ingredients into the catalyst, the volume of the catalyst will double without the end result changing in effectiveness. In addition, doing this a large number of times will actually lower the required amount of each ingredient to redouble the catalyst volume, meaning that once the catalyst is successfully brewed, it becomes exponentially easier to produce more of the potion.

The catalyst can be stored indefinitely, and is generally nonreactive to anything except for mana, which turns it into Passion. This property is what gave Passion a class 3 classification.

## Role in the Kepia-Fikiri Conflict

The effects and dangers of Passion remained largely unknown to the Kepian government until the complete collapse of the city of Soren. Even then, Passion was not viewed to be the reason behind the fall, and by the time it's properties were discovered, the drug had managed to enter a large number of neighboring cities, with the most prominent being Kotluk, Jelsa, and Chai Nepla.

Upon discovering the cataclysmic potential of Passion, the Kepian government aimed to destroy all knowledge of its existence. This included:

* Wiping any knowledge of Vilkan Rainer, its original creator, from Kepian history.
* Attempting to the best of its ability to drive each of the three ingredients to extinction. Of the three, Snow Eggs and Trifloras are now extremely rare, and are essentially unknown to most people. Astral Flowers are the one one of the three that is still somewhat common, and is located in Fikiri.
* Sealing off all borders to Kotluk, Jelsa, Chai Nepla, and any settlements in between the three. Then proceeding to wipe out all of these settlements, typically through genocide. The actually killing was done by members of a black ops squad pretending to be bandits.

Since the reason behind such actions obviously couldn't be explained to the public, they caused a large amount of dissent throughout the nation, ultimately culminating in Fikiri claiming independence in rebellion, thus starting the Kepian-Fikiri War.