Yeah, I shortened it quite a bit due to time constraints.
And it was definitely more overwhelming than originally intended. You were intended to start off around level 5/15/1 and have a much smaller pool of skills, but for the sake of time, I bumped up all of their levels, so Nol just starts with a large number of her skills already unlocked.
I think it says somewhere the Nol makes the potions by converting her energy into potions, which she can do because she is the clone of a goddess, but that later part isn't explicitly stated. I'll see later if I need to make the item for the caves a bit more clear or if increasing the exposure to skills/items will make it more clear. The caves were more or less meant to prod the player into learning more about what the characters can do. (It is possible to get through the caves without using any items, it will just be much harder).