With the Lyte Brigade’s two adventures wrapped up, here’s an all-new cast of characters.
THE ALCHEMIST OF MIDDLESBROOKE:
A TALE OF REALMGARD
J.B. Norman
Copyright 2023-2025
To the best friends I’ve had in a long time.
Chapter 1
Lucia Tormalina would like to tell you about the Duchy of Middlesbrooke. Middlesbrooke likes to flaunt to anyone and everyone the fact that it is a remarkable city — well, technically, city-state.
Middlesbrooke is very rich, very old and very proud of that fact, and especially proud of the fact that the Duchy is the successor to Emperor Theobald’s mighty empire, which ruled over most of Realmgard centuries ago. The people of Middlesbrooke are quick to point out that the city’s reigning Dukes can trace their lineage all the way back to Theobald himself, which is why all of the Dukes add ‘Theobald’ to their names — Lucia can only assume they’re up to Duke Theobald the Eight-Millionth, or so.
Lucia shifts uneasily, furry ears twitching restlessly. Every single Middlesbrookian — or Middlesbrookite, or Middlesbrookigonian, or whatever — is staring at her. She can feel the never-ending stares so vividly that they’re actually making her itchy. It’s like the people in Middlesbrooke have never seen a Wilderling before! But, Lucia reflects, she hasn’t seen many other Wilderlings since coming to Middlesbrooke, so maybe they haven’t seen a Wilderling before.
“I hate it here,” she mutters to herself.
Lucia grew up on a waterlemon farm in Natalis, miles from anywhere important, in a small, quiet village no-one has ever heard of — exactly the kind of place that Middlesbrooke isn’t. Even after travelling with Apolline and Petra for so long, she still doesn’t like visiting big cities. And Middlesbrooke is a big city. That hates her and won’t stop staring at her and is just making her itchy and grumpy.
Capitolina help her, she’s starting to miss life on the waterlemon farm.
She misses her parents. She misses her grandparents. She misses peering into the depths of the sacred well in the centre of town, trying to catch a glimpse of Saint Artemio’s sword that he flung into the water after renouncing his former life as a warrior and adopting the life of a holy hermit.
She misses learning more than she ever wanted to know about the history of waterlemons. She’d be out in the fields with her father or grandfather and they’d go on and on about how waterlemons first came into being after an ancient wizard’s botanical experiments went awry, the Emperor enjoyed the taste of a watermelon magically crashed into a lemon, and waterlemons went on to become one of Natalis’ most widespread crops.
She’d even miss people asking ‘Don’t you mean watermelons?’, except that never stopped.
“Can we go inside? Please?” Lucia asks the other two.
Petra glances back at her, one eye obscured by her long, unkempt red hair. “Is something wrong, Lucia?” she asks
“Everyone is staring at us,” Lucia says. “You must have noticed it, right?”
Petra nods. “But unless they’re getting ready to ambush us, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” she assures Lucia.
People tend to stare at Petra wherever they go, no matter what. She sticks out even more than a Wildering like Lucia does. Petra is big and blue and dressed in Amazon armour, like a big chunk of a mountain that uprooted itself one day, then decided it needed better protection for its midsection. Being half-Troll and half-Amazon, she’s a rare sight. Even Petra herself has only ever met a handful of others like her.
“We’re almost there,” Apolline says from the head of their group.
The sorceress is the only one in their trio who looks like she belongs in Middlesbrooke, with her elegant looks and fancy clothing. Her long blonde is hair gleaming and meticulously combed-out beneath her fashionable beret, that one lone curl always strikingly falling down her forehead in the most aesthetically-pleasing fashion possible. Her clothes always look perfect, no matter what trouble they’ve gotten into lately. Or what horrible thing has recently tried to eat them.
As a noblewoman, Apolline is rich and important, and at least as elegant and dignified as any of the rich, important people from Middlesbrooke. The only hint that she’s a long way from home is the faint Aurorean accent that colours her words whenever she speaks. The fact that she can blend it so easily makes Lucia a little jealous. Itchy and jealous. Apolline fits in just fine as long as she’s quiet. Unlike Petra, who’s fifty-seven feet tall and blue, or Lucia, who has her own accent, and a pair of big, furry ears.
“Here we are,” Apolline declares, leading them around a street corner. “Great-Uncle — Oh. Oh my.”
“We came all the way here for this?” Lucia exclaims.
Amid the towering spires and impressive facades of Middlesbrooke’s architecture, the old house sticks out just as much as Lucia, Petra, and Apolline do. Most of the buildings in Middlesbrooke are old in the same way the ancient statues back home in Natalis are — venerable and majestic.
But this house is old in the way the shed out back on her parents’ farm is. It looks like you could knock it down by looking at it hard enough. The three adventurers stand in front of the old house, erstwhile home of the erstwhile Baron Pollux Castor, the reason the three adventurers have travelled to Middlesbrooke. The house has been bequeathed to Apolline by the Baron, her great-uncle. Thinking about it, Lucia wonders just what she did to make Great-Uncle Pollux so angry at her to deserve this.
“Hmm,” Apolline mutters. “It’s a little more run-down than I remember.”
“It’s a lot run-down,” Lucia counters. “No offence, Apolline, but I don’t think your Great-Uncle liked you very much.”
“Yes, well. This was Great-Uncle Pollux’s vacation house. I suppose it’s been a while since he did any vacationing. I haven’t stayed here since I was a girl,” Apolline says.
“I don’t think anyone’s stayed here in years,” Petra notes.
“So, what now?” Lucia asks.
Her stomach answers for her, rumbling loud enough that both Apolline and Petra immediately turn their gazes in the direction of her stomach. Lucia blushes and her furry ears droop. She’s sure her stomach was loud enough that any Middlesbrookians walking down the street heard it, too. Just when she thought their time in Middlesbrooke couldn’t get any more mortifying.
“Come on,” Apolline says. “I saw a coffeehouse back there. They take their coffee very seriously in Middlesbrooke.”
Sitting in the coffeehouse watching Apolline talk things over with a local builder, Lucia feels like she’s been living in the set-up for a bad joke: ‘So, a Wilderling, a Half-Troll Amazon, and an Aurorean sorceress walk into a coffeehouse…’
She’s laughing already!
Well, no. Not ‘laughing’ so much as ‘wanting to scream.’
“You’ve seen the house?” Apolline asks the builder. “What would the repairs cost?”
The builder thoughtfully strokes his chin. “Well, it looks like no-one’s lived there for years. We’re talking about a full top-to-bottom renovation. That kind of thing won’t come cheap, but I could get it done for 1000 marks.”
Apolline frowns. “And what would it cost to address just the most pressing issues?”
“Oh, about 900 marks. Like I said, that place is a mess.”
“I see. Thank you,” Apolline says with her typical Aurorean diplomatic politeness. “I think I’ll need to talk this over with my friends before we commit to anything.”
“So, we need 900 marks,” Lucia says, turning to her companions as the builder walks away. “How much do we have now?”
“Between the three of us?” Petra answers. “Twenty-seven marks. Ten Valico bezants. And seven Northgate groats.”
“Ugh,” Lucia groans, slumping back over the table. “I hate it here.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” the Aurorean sorceress tells her. “We’re just having a little money trouble. We’ve had worse.”
“I agree,” Petra says. “That den of Dire Marmots was much worse than this. Such horrid little things.”
Never complaining must be an Amazon thing. Lucia doesn’t understand how Petra is coping with life in Middlesbrooke as well as she is. For one thing, the furniture here was clearly not built with Half-Troll Amazons in mind. Petra has to hug her legs to her chest just to fit at their table and her chair creaks precariously underneath her muscular frame whenever she moves.
Apolline reaches up to give Lucia a consoling pat on the shoulder.
“Grazie,” Lucia mutters into the tabletop.
Lucia has been fluent in Gardian — the most widespread language in Realmgard — for most of her life but she still slips back into using Natalian when she’s mad, surprised, or hasn’t quite finished waking up in the morning. Since Middlesbrooke has proven to have it in for, she’s been speaking a lot of Natalian lately. She’s just glad her parents aren’t around. Some of the things she has been saying would probably earn her a talking-to.
“Would you feel better if I scratched behind your ears?” Apolline offers.
People are always asking to touch Lucia’s furry ears, like it wouldn’t be weird if she asked to feel their ears. But Apolline and Petra are her best friends in the world, and, well, she is a cat.
“…Yes.”
“I have an idea,” Petra interjects.
“Oh?” Apolline asks, continuing to scratch behind Lucia’s ears.
With cautious optimism, Lucia lifts her face from the table and stares across at Petra.
“We should be advertising,” Petra explains. “In a city this big, we have to be able to find someone who needs help from three experienced adventurers.”
“What are you thinking, Petra?” Apolline asks.
“A poster. To advertise ourselves to the people of Middlesbrooke,” Petra answers.
“It couldn’t hurt, I suppose,” Apolline says, thoughtfully twirling the lock of hair on forehead around her finger.
Petra nods. Her chair creaks threateningly as she shifts her weight and stands. “I’ll get the materials,” she declares.
When Petra returns with an armful of papers and paints. She lays out her materials on the table and feverishly sets to work, her tongue sticking of the corner of her mouth.
“It’s done,” she declares at length.
Lucia reaches for the poster.
Experienced adventuring group available for hire. Local sponsor needed. Rates negotiable.
References & resumé available upon request.
Inquire with Petra, Lucia, and Apolline.
Petra’s penmanship is excellent. Her artistic skills, not so much.
“And what are those?” Lucia asks, pointing to the three shapeless blobs at the bottom of the poster.
“Those are us,” Petra answers.
“That one’s you,” Apolline notes, pointing to the blue shape. “That one must be Lucia—those are her ears and her tail. Which means that this one is me, with the long hair.”
“Yes,” Petra says.
“Those are ears?” Lucia mutters.
Petra nods contritely. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been able to get a good reference for your ears. Usually, you only keep still enough for me to do a study when you’re sleeping.”
“You’ve been watching me sleep?”
Every Realmgard story so far is available for your reading pleasure here:
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