[P] The Hunger

[Capsule]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

∝:
602

♪ ♫♪:
Bela Lugosi's Dead

✏:
Saucy!

@:
Capsule

Capsule was hungry all right, but she also had a quota to fill before she could relax, such as research and a regular craft, the latter of which she would be making and shipping off first. Potions were as easy as pie to make, but research could drag on forever. Capsule decided that it couldn't hurt to go ahead and get lunch started. She could do some work while she waited for the cook to finish. The woman had a craving for something salty and kind of nutty today. Something like… pesto? The thought of pesto sauce on pasta made her mouth water. Hopefully they had some in the kitchen.

She spotted one of the Lander helpers in the café, and flagged him down. ”Is Nala here?” The man shook his head. He was just one of the many servants hired by Capsule to help out around the castle. As far as she knew, they lacked a member with the Housekeeper subclass, and it was a lot cheaper to hire Landers than other Adventurers. She had personally hired the staff herself, and chose only those with good attitudes and hardworking personalities. Lionel the Lander was just one of those.

Lionel was a bit taller than she was, with curly red hair and very pale skin. "Is there anything I can get for you in her stead, Master Capsule?" Master Capsule. Never in her life had she been referred to as such. It was still something that she was growing accustomed to.

”I'd like some pasta, if possible - preferably topped with pesto sauce.”

The man blinked in confusion. "…Pesto? I am sadly not very familiar with this concoction."

”It's a simple sauce that only takes a few minutes to mix. I could show you how?” It would probably be best if she did so herself, anyway. The sauce recipe, researched by @dindeen, was available to all Adventurers. ”On second thought, I'll prepare the sauce and you can get the pasta ready, all right?.” There was no time like the present, and it would be faster than teaching Lionel.

She followed the man into the kitchen, and began rummaging through the cabinets. Pine nuts, basil, a bit of cheese, garlic, and olive oil were what she needed. Luckily for her, the garlic was already in powder form, but the nuts were still whole. Capsule scattered a handful of pine nuts into her mortar and pestle, and grinded them until they were in much smaller pieces, but not finely powdered. She then dumped the nuts into a bowl provided by Lionel, and added in the rest of the ingredients.

Capsule hummed to herself as she stirred the ingredients together. Lionel watched over her shoulder in fascination. The man scribbled down something in a small notebook he carried around with him. "Is that really all it takes?"

”Mmhm! It's really that simple, Lionel. Do you think you could do the same if you had to?”

"I believe I can. I shall give it a whirl later." He gestured behind him, at the stove. "I also have the water ready to accommodate your noodles, master."

"Thank you, Lionel, but I have another request. Can you make some of your famous cheese ravioli?"


A large grin broke out over the man's face. "Of course! Leave the sauce to me, and I will bring your meal up to you when it's done!" That's what she liked about Lionel - he was always so eager to learn and please. Her stomach grumbled again as she exited the room. As far as she was concerned, lunch could not come faster.

coded by benetnasch of ET

[Capsule]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

∝:
645

♪ ♫♪:
Too Long / Steam Machine

✏:
Anti-stun tablets, here I come!

@:
Capsule

The first thing Capsule did when she plopped her happy butt back down in her office chair was to thumb through the newspaper. The latest accepted and pending researches were there, like Hirosame's proposal for skates and skateboards, Tobin's distilled spirits, and Hanelli's newly processed anti-stun tablets. The anti-stun tablets were of course the first thing on her to do list for today, and she did not expect to have much trouble at all in making them. They were just tablets, after all, and she had made enough of those to know what was up.

Capsule placed the newspaper down and took out her updated copy of Advances In Pharmaceutical Research. This was how she obtained and retained all of the pharmacy research, and was a rather valuable piece of literature for her. She liked to imagine that the same could be said for fellow Pharmacists, but eh.

She thumbed through the book, which listed her as one of the top researchers in the field, and took a (very) brief moment to reflect on her past discoveries. It was hard to believe that she was the most active Pharmacist at the time, but then again it lacked the popularity of the Tailor or Blacksmithing class. Alchemy seemed to be growing in popularity nowadays, and much to her dismay Scribes had dropped off a little. This sucked for Capsule, as her favored weapon was the Grimoire, and once she was forced to give back the level twenty spellbook she had borrowed from Scoria, she would be stuck with a level ten book and level twenty blades. She did not mind the kukri or the butterfly knife one bit, but she could hardly use either to channel her magic or take advantage of the free bolt of magical energy they fired.

She sighed as she flipped over to Hanelli's profile, and what appeared to be a very short list of pending research claims from the woman. Hanelli was listed as an up and coming Pharmacist, though her popularity was not very high. Based on her progress so far, she seemed to be following a very clear pattern - disabling and then offering a cure. It made sense, given the fact that she was an Assassin. Capsule's research, on the other hand, was just blatantly out there. She researched whatever came to mind and deemed likable or interesting enough to bother with.

Capsule propped the book up on a stand, with the page turned to the anti-stun tablet recipe. The damned thing required four ingredients, but whatever. She was down and hip with the times, and who knows when you would encounter a pesky monster with nasty stun debuffs? The list stated that she would need one impure solvent, two impure tablets, and one base herb.

Each needed material was taken out and neatly placed beside her mortar and pestle, which was surrounded by several tubes, beakers, and a single hot plate. Her desk and her body were hot and ready to roll, and her butterfly knife was itching to cut something. The blade was oddly sharp, in the sense that it was a lot sharper than the blade of her kukri. She had to be especially careful to avoid nicking herself when using it. Perhaps that was due to the weapon being rarely used, and her kukri accustomed to chopping down terrain, monsters and herbs? She should probably get it sharpened at some point.

She set the single herb down on her cutting board, and sliced through it with great ease. This blade was itching to cut something hard enough to warrant the effort, but she would not be able to pull through for it today. She might go hunting later, though; Meenah was itching for a fight. The Sahaugin Brute was not cut out for a life of relaxing. Monsters or people like her rarely were.

coded by benetnasch of ET

[Capsule]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

∝:
604

♪ ♫♪:
Don't Move

✏:
We're doing it. Yep.

@:
Capsule

Capsule made quick work of the herb, and collected the neatly diced remains to deposit into the bowl of her mortar. She then picked up the two impure tablets, and quickly put them to the knife. Theirs was a quick and painful "death," though a little difficult to initially start. In the end, it was just easier to chop them in half and chuck them inside the mortar. She could just grind them into bits, anyway. Was there anything else that she needed to chop up? A quick glance at the recipe told her no.

With phase one complete, Capsule moved onto phase two: the grinding of these freak nasty materials, and not the "good" kind (which involved a shit ton of hormones and teenagers or horny adults performing the provocative dance of genital grinding out on the dance floor), either. This was the brutally rough kind that only masochists would desire, assuming they held some sort of death wish. The sadist administering the pain would obviously get more out of this than anemone - anybody (damn Meenah and her fish puns), of course.

She poked and prodded the ingredients to ensure that they were ready for phase two, and upon finding their bodies waiting in anticipation, picked up her pestle. It was time to get down with the sickness, by which the narrator meant that some serious grinding action was about to occur. If these chopped bits of herb and impure tablets were capable of speech or even sentient thought, they would crying for her to cease and desist.

"Capsule," their human resources head would say, "This is surely bad for business. Can you not see that this is unbearably cruel to cause such havoc upon the little people, those of whom are unable to protect themselves from the higher powers that be? We beseech thee to look into your kind, generous soul, and release us from this peril. In other words, be cool, man. Be cool. Cause this is straight up whack, yo. Its whack as hell and it ain't right. Do ya sea me smiling like a gorramned Cheshire cat?" The inaccurately named human resources head would likely shake a fist or something at the woman in outrage.

Capsule stared down at the mortar in her hand. She then lowered the club end of her pestle down, and pressed hard against the offending slice of herb that resembled a tiny face and open gab. Nope. Go away. You stop that, imagination. You stop that right now. She was an adult, and had no time for these shenanigans. This was her guild house, bought mostly with her money, and this office was handpicked and commandeered by her. By golly, she was going to grind these suckers, and there was not a gosh darned thing they could do about it. The tiny, fictional people she crushed would just have to deal with it.

She turned her mortar from side to side, using the side of the pestle to crush and grind some of the suckers to bits. She then righted the mortar and crushed the bits in the middle, before spinning the bowl around again to catch them on the sides. Capsule did this a few more times, until the result was favorable. She poked and prodded the mixed ingredients with the tip of her pinky finger, checking for lumps and other inconsistencies. When she was satisfied that there were none, she set her eyes on one of the beakers sitting around on her desk, just waiting to be filled with dried goodies and moistened. Don’t worry – Capsule has got your back, boo.

coded by benetnasch of ET

[Capsule]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

∝:
518

♪ ♫♪:
Don't Move

✏:
And done with anti-stun tablets.

@:
Capsule

The powdered substance was carefully transported from the mortar to a beaker, the latter of which Capsule gently shook from side to side. It was an unnecessary action, but once the powder had settled evenly, she then poured in the impure solvent. This time when she shook the beaker again, it was to get as much as possible wet before she mixed the lot up with her glass stirrer.

Once satisfied with the results, Capsule set the beaker down on a hot plate and left it to sit while she went back to thumbing through Advances In Pharmaceutical Research. She turned back onto her own profile, with a candid shot of her face out in the market square. The journalist was apparently another Adventurer, but one who operated in secret; you never knew where she was until you read about yourself in the paper, and despite few (if any) of the researchers listed not talking directly with her, she had their basic information, and sometimes even knew a few details that were cause for concern. The woman apparently knew that Capsule kept a Shield Mollusk and Sahaugin Brute in the Tower of London's guild pool, for example. It kind of creeped Capsule out, but at least it gave her some free publicity.

Looking at her accomplishments made Capsule wonder if she should aim for something practical and useful, like an updated version of her original mana potion. It was really crummy, but also perfect for milking people of their money. For the more mana hungry higher levels, though, it would really be better to have reliable mana potions. She was certain she could find ways to extort people with that. All she had to do was make the upgraded mana potion creation restricted to those who had previously crafted the lesser mana potion, and were at least level twenty. Given the fact that there were few active Pharmacists around, she could still control a good deal of the market that way.

Capsule was smirking as she set her paper down and leaned forward to inspect the beaker. The contents were lightly bubbling, which meant that the mix would be done in a few minutes. She spent that time gently stirring the potion, and then turned off the burner and gave the thickening liquid time to cool.

A little bit of the dusty remains from her mortar were scattered on her chopping board before Capsule dropped a teaspoon of the stuff onto it. She rolled this around on the board, coating its sides with the residue, until it was in the form of a thick tablet, and then placed it on a piece of waxed paper. She did the rest of the mixture like this, until the waxed paper was filled with little tablets. They were supposed to be soluble or something, so she would not go through the trouble of baking them, much like she'd done for the medicinal tablets. At any rate, they would be considered done once they had dried up some. That meant that it was time for Capsule to get cracking on some research.

coded by benetnasch of ET

[Capsule]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

∝:
503

♪ ♫♪:
Don't Move

✏:
Research time.

@:
Capsule

There was a knock at her door, and with it came the scent of food - pesto warmed over pasta. Capsule's mouth watered at the smell, and she opened the door before Lionel could knock again, beckoning him in. The man gave a light bow before walking in and setting the platter of food down on the small table adjacent from her desk, situated near a short bookcase. ”Thank you, Lionel! It looks and smells delicious.”

Her fellow redhead grinned and bowed a second time, deeper now. "I couldn't have done it without your help, master." She was never going to get used to be calling master, but it really was nice. The man bowed a third time before shuffling out of the room. Capsule waited until the door was closed before she sat down and pulled the platter closer to herself. The plate of pasta, topped with pesto was in the middle, a hunk of garlic bread was placed to the side, a small tossed salad was in a bowl to the left, and a tall glass of blueberry lemonade sat in the top right corner.

Within a matter of minutes, that tray was a lot less full of food than when it had started. The pasta was absolutely demolished, the salad left only a few shreds of lettuce, and the garlic bread was being used to mop up the remainder of pesto sauce. Capsule nibbled on the bread as she got up and moved around, setting a lesser mana potion from her inventory down onto her desk. She placed an impure solvent beside it, and after a moment of quiet reflection, added a mana fragment and an impure tablet. Okay, now she was just screwing around, but it's not like an updated version of this mana potion needed any crazy finagling. She was just upping the dose, after all.

Capsule finished the bread in two more bites, and after washing down the last of her blueberry lemonade, she rolled up the sleeves of her lab coat. Or she would have, if she had actually invested in something like that. Regardless, the woman was ready to sit down and make something of these materials. Her first step was of course to tidy up her desk of debris from the anti-stun tablets, and then to pour the lesser mana potion into an empty beaker.

She then neatly chopped the impure tablet in half, and grounded it up to bits with her mortar and pestle. Capsule's stomach remained blissfully silent as she worked, though she somewhat regretted eating such a heavy meal. She would be sleepy and sluggish in a bit, and would ideally be done before that happened. Sleepiness could lead to dozing off, and dozing off could lead to an accident. Accidents on the job usually occurred when the worker was tired or unprepared, and she would not like to wake up to an explosion blowing the nose right off her face. Form Shift or not, lacking a nose was a bitch.

coded by benetnasch of ET

[Capsule]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

∝:
519

♪ ♫♪:
Don't Move

✏:
Still researching.

@:
Capsule

Capsule relocated the powdered impure tablet to a tube, and gingerly retrieved the mana fragment with a pair of tweezers. She positioned a small bowl beneath, and slowly lowered the fragment down into the bottom. Although it was not an unstable piece of mana, she still had to exercise some caution. These things could melt on contact. Of course, if she really wanted to avoid that, she could have donned a pair of gloves. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, and all that nonsense.

With a stroke of one bare finger, Capsule transformed the whole mana fragment into a mass of thick jelly, and not the kind you would want to slather on toast, either. She stirred this gunk around with her stirrer, before scooping it up and into the tube of powder. It looked downright nasty, just sitting there on top of the powder. Capsule applied the impure solvent to the mix, and whisked the ingredients around until they were all evenly mixed.

She set the vial down in a thin stand, and placed said stand over the hot plate. While this stuff heated up, she wiped her hands and went over to her platter, searching for pieces of food that had yet to be liberated, like those lone pieces of lettuce. She also sat down to nibble on her everlasting mooncake, which would regenerate the next day. It gave off a healing factor, which she did not need, but it was a tasty after lunch snack. She made a quick call for Lionel to come and retrieve the platter, and to bring up a refill of the blueberry lemonade. You're going to put on weight at this point,' she thought as she patted her stomach and went back to her desk.

That would not be a bad thing, of course. Capsule was in dire need of putting on weight back in the real world, though it was hard to do with her fast metabolism, and she did not often eat fattening food. A fleeting thought of making some kind of concoction to increase one's appetite came to mind, but she had no idea how to go about making it, nor did she think it would even be worth the trouble. Could one even gain weight in this world? She certainly had not noticed, but then she was a squishy Enchanter who was used to hanging out of the way of immediate danger. She got plenty of exercise, though, what with her parkour and other shenanigans, but not much to really make any difference.

She gave a soft sigh to herself as she stretched and leaned forward to observe the lightly bubbling vial. The small bones in the middle of her back softly popped as she turned from side to side, and leaned back into an upright position. It might even be beneficial to research something that gave a boost to strength or defense, though she may allow someone else to do so in her stead. Besides, it seemed too obvious an item to research, and she wanted to lower the odds of being research sniped by some up and comer.

coded by benetnasch of ET

[Capsule]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

[newclass=.benetbar]background-color:#050505; border: 2px solid #050505; border-radius: 5px; overflow: hidden; width: 150px; height:6px;[/newclass]

[attr="class","benetbar"]

∝:
629

♪ ♫♪:
Don't Move

✏:
And done.

@:
Capsule

Lionel came in just as Capsule was about to get back to work. The man came bearing a much smaller platter with a pitcher of bluish yellow liquid. He refilled her cup and left the pitcher and small platter behind, but took the larger food tray with him. Lionel was such a nice guy; he even left behind two cookies to go with her drink. Capsule had to wonder if the man had overheard her talking with Aranea, her grandmotherly Shield Mollusk. Aranea was always hounding her about her thin figure, and needing to eat more. The old crab meant well, but sometimes the lectures got really old.

Capsule stuck a cookie in her mouth to munch on as she turned off the hot plate and lightly shook the vial from side to side. It was a much better shade by now, though probably had the taste and consistency of cough syrup. She poured the contents into the beaker, and stirred that all up as well. The liquid within went from a deep blue to a bluer one with red twinges. Capsule thought it was a rather pretty, albeit incomplete, potion.

She moved the beaker to the hot plate and switched it back on. It was not enough to just heat one mixture and add it to the other. She had to be sure that they were truly mixed together, though even then she would not be using the entire beaker for the final product. This was supposed to be a stronger potion, not just a mere blend. She would extract only the strongest strain possible, and either leave it in a syringe or cap in a new vial. It was oh so tempting to make something called Mana Shots, and the idea would have won her over if it had not sounded too much like a drug. There were not many people who were fond of needles, either, and would only limit her number of customers as a result. 'Oh well.' She had to make a few sacrifices in the name of research.

The beaker was removed before the contents could get too overheated. Using a syringe, Capsule extracted enough to fill three vials. She capped and vigorously shook each one, and set them down afterwards to watch the result. As there were no sudden popping or explosions, she took that to be a good sign, but still arranged each vial over the hot plate for a moment. She wanted to be sure that the ingredients were truly evenly distributed, and afterwards would test their virility.

Capsule thought the best way would be to deplete her mana a bit. She used Inversion on the Frenmic Rabbit statue in her office, manipulated her features with Form Shift, and summoned up her Gehenna Swarm. The spell use did not greatly drop her mana, but it should have at least lowered it to something below what the level ten lesser mana potion could restore. For good measure, though, she also summoned up her Magic Light and used a few more spells, until a sizable chunk was gone from her mana pool. She needed to at least replenish one hundred and fifty mana. That was twenty five more than what the lesser mana potion could restore.

She picked up a vial and chugged it down. This one turned out to be a bit weak, in that it healed only a bit more than the original potion, but the second one fully replenished her mana. That meant that it was a keeper (in her stomach!), and that hopefully the third would mimic that result. Capsule decided to sample some later and keep the dregs that remained in the beaker, but for now she would turn in her findings and hope for favorable results.

coded by benetnasch of ET