Myron The Magical's Magical Potion Book

I still remember it now, all these years later, the night he died. It was snowing outside the dilapidated hut he called his home, which of course is almost obligatory in such circumstances, though I did once hear of a magician who once died in the sun on a beach somewhere, but a few people told me he wasn't actually a magician and simply an old man with a beard on holiday.
Whatever.

I hate snow.

But there I was, his apprentice just two short weeks, when the old man went and carked it. Well, when I say that, magicians like to keep the myth going that they don't actually die, they just disappear into some other, more ethereal realm. As far as I remember it, Myron definitely died that afternoon. And not even nobly or heroically. He coughed a couple of times, some blood came up, and then he was gone.
Well, he wasn't gone entirely. He left his body behind, which of course after a week I realised no-one was going to claim, so I had to bury the stinking thing. Being winter the ground was particularly hard, and being a (now deceased) wizard's apprentice I knew no such spell or charm to make the task easier. I lost three toes to chilblains burying Myron, though old Ma Scroggin down the hill was grateful for the cocktail sausages to put in her hearty winter stew. Again, a spell would have come in handy then. Or possibly a pair of shoes, but then who ever heard of magicians being practical.
Myron didn't leave me entirely unequipped, however. For the two weeks I had him alive, he actually did teach me one thing before lapsing into the comatose state that eventually resulted in his death.
"Alaric," he would say (I didn't have the heart to tell him my name was Omric, Alaric was actually a former apprentice but being old and forgetful he had called his last 4 apprentices Alaric) "That book up there on the top shelf, that's my potion book. You'll learn magic from there. Though," he stopped at this point to caugh (like, I'm pretty sure it was a cough, but then he sounded like he was laughing, thus the term "caugh" to cover this ambiguity) "all my other apprentices gave up long before the end!" Myron paused in his monologue to look me up and down, "No doubt you'll be the same. They all end up begging me to teach them how to summon fireballs, or fly over mountains. Pah! Show pony stuff! You look like a show pony, Alaric. No doubt you'll be the same. No doubt."
The next few days I learnt to care for a dying wizard. After that I learnt to bury a dead wizard.
So far, my apprenticeship wasn't going that well.

But Myron had been slightly wrong in his assessment of me. Yes, I was a show pony - I became a wizard because I wanted to be impressive, to be noticed, and also because people gave wizards free food. But I was, and still am, as stubborn as a fundamentalist donkey. So, despite the death of my teacher, I decided to remain his apprentice. And night after night, week after week, month after month, I worked my way through that book, not moving on to the next recipe until I had finished the previous one to my level of satisfaction. And in doing so, I gained a new level of respect for old Myron. Though 'Sure Farts for at Least Seventeen Minutes' was a slightly pointless potion as far as I could tell, most of his recipes were brilliant. And not only that, I knew of not a single other wizard who could make even one of his vile brews. 'Turns Man into Rabbit', 'Makes Politician Honest', 'Renovates Peasant's Hovel into Well-Appointed Flat With Interior Toilet', and the list went on! These potionmaking secrets, guarded by generations of wizards for generations, they were the real heart of good magic. While my fellow apprentices learnt to fly and summon fireballs, I became a recluse, shut away in the old hut for over three years as I worked through the book. Finding 'Warms The Chilling Home' half way through was a bit of a bonus as well! And over the years, I lost my desire to become a show pony, as I gained a love for this true, deep, secret magic, found hidden in the glass vials and the secret incantations of the true magician, living in his hut without friends, shoes, or an interior toilet.

I may have also been driven slightly mad during this process.

Anyway, the day finally came. The day I reached the final spell in Myron's The Magical's Magical Potion Book. The list of ingredients alone was three pages in length (single spaced, Times New Roman.) The incantation was in seven parts, each in a different language, and could only be effectively said while the caster was hanging upside down, on fire, and listening to Lady Gaga played backwards.
But the resulting potion... whew. Even today it takes my breath away. The power, the audacity, the sheer brilliance of its effect - this was truly the ultimate potion, and worthy of its final place in Myron's book.

I started my search for ingredients straight away.

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