The Marvellous Failed Hangover Cure

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Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Alchemists creating dangerously potent home-brew and wild cocktails was a cliche, but one many young alchemists were happy to perform. Vicky was of the cohort who rarely woke sober on Saturday morning, and had using this as grounds for testing hangover cures.
After all, while creating a fun new spirit could earn you a tidy packet from the many bars near campus, cracking the elusive fix for over-indulgence woes would make you a fortune and get you a place in the school’s hall of fame!
On this particular Saturday, when Vicky peeled herself out of bed and stumbled through the gentle early afternoon sunlight like it was a gauntlet of fire jets, she found there was no test cure waiting in the fridge.
Oh. Right. She’d run out of lab time, so it was either make up the next cure to try or finish her homework for the week, and she’d nobly chose homework. Then treated herself to a few extra cocktails as a reward for being responsible.
Uggggh.
Best to just knock back a few pain-dullers and go back to bed. So she fumbled the cupboard open… to find an empty bottle.
What? Hadn’t she…
Ohhh yeah she hadn’t gone shopping Thursday because she would’ve had to skip quiz night.
The thought of trying to go back to bed with nothing to treat her throbbing pain and churning stomach was intolerable. She made a mental calculation for how long it would take to walk to the corner shop.
About as long as it would take to walk to the workshop. And that would let her experiments stay on schedule.
The level of mental clarity required to question whether you have sufficient mental clarity to safely handle alchemical substances ironically overlaps with that sufficient level, and Vicky’s current state was nowhere near either.
So she pulled on track pants and a hoodie, grabbed her flatmate’s slip-on sandals from the entryway, and shuffled out into the clement afternoon with her hood pulled down over her eyes.
On arriving at the workshop she found it thankfully deserted. Now all she had to do was follow the recipe. She patted her pockets. Her notes… let’s see…
Realising that her notes were back at home prompted a stream of disjointed primordial half-swears.
In almost any other circumstance, Vicky would have either gone back for her project file or given up and followed one of the simple, well-proven recipes for basic pain treatment. But with heady lack of self-appraisal she decided she could remember well enough.
It’d be fine.
She still had enough sense to only gingerly dab some of the resulting potion on her tongue to check for reaction. Nothing.
Just a little sip…
At first, nothing. Then a soothing sensation quieted her riotous stomach.
Success??
Vicky knocked back the rest of the mixture and sighed with relief as the coolness spread outwards. But it didn’t ease her pain - if anything, it made her more aware of it! Then it reached her head and-
OooOh.
Everything was clear.
E V E R Y T H I N G.
The grain of the table under her fingertips. The paths of the dust motes floating in the air. Every movement, every pulse, every burble of her body.
Formulae unravelled before her attention. Connections sparked and strung together. She realised exactly where her attempts had been going wrong! From this lofty, dispassionate piercing state it was laughably obvious. All she had to do was-
Then she threw up. That clarity, the certainty, leaving her body with the acidic mess of last night’s snacking.
She had to reach it again! All she had to do was follow the - remember what she’d - figure out what…
Vicky would go on to be an accomplished alchemist, harnessing that moment of clarity to drive her studies. But sadly she never managed to achieve her life’s goal - recreating that marvellous failed hangover cure.

Prompt was “You accidentally create a potion when attempting to make a hangover cure.”