Alchemised

by SenLinYu

There were statistics presented about how Paladia’s economy was expected to continue to shrink due to a multigenerational loss of alchemists. The solution, the author declared, was sponsored births. The article suddenly stopped being editorial and read more like an advertisement. The head of the new science and alchemy department at Central, Irmgard Stroud, was heading up a program to bolster the next generation of alchemists using new scientific selection methods to give them the best start. Volunteers were wanted. Participants would be provided food and lodgings, and upon completion of the program, those with criminal convictions would be eligible for retrial. Helena read the editorial several times, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. It was a breeding program being passed off as an economic solution. As if alchemists were dogs to mate in pursuit of economically desirable transmutation abilities. It wasn’t an entirely new concept. Marrying into the resonance was a well-known term for the guild families’ tendency to marry those with either the same or a complementary alchemical resonance. Aurelia and Ferron were just such an example.