Outwardly Papa Schimmelhorn is an elderly cuckoo clock assembler with overactive hormones. But beneath the lecherous façade lurks a powerful subconscious. Having solved the problems of time travel, black holes and alternate universes he looks forward with unbound glee to the simple problem of converting lead into the world's most precious commodity - GOLD! But then he meets Gaspar Gansfleisch, the finest (and vilest) alchemist in Europe... and the 400-year-old homunculus who is his prisoner... and the luscious Priestess Philippa Theophrastra Bombast von Hohenheim. Life is never simple for a subconscious genius. And if you think things can't get worse, he has yet to meet the Minotaur!