Post by Okami on Jan 15, 2014 5:13:36 GMT
What is alchemy?
Some might describe it as the forerunner of sciences. Back in a time when mystery still surrounded the world and men claimed them-selves capable of turning lead to gold or create eternal youth potions. Others would say it’s a long standing tradition that set it-self as the bases for modern day chemistry, and back in its hay day made numerous contributions to both medical and physical sciences.
For Alana, it was sitting hunched over a tiny pot in a back alley.
Her toy had been set on the shelf for the day, and the fox-tail had quietly squirreled her-self away into seclusion to focus on her craft. Okami was a social butterfly, cheerful and loving, always running across the landscape to examine the slightest movements. Which, naturally, lead to her accomplishing absolutely nothing of note progress wise on their alchemy class. Her. Her alchemy class. Not theirs. Alana placed two thumbs between her temples and rubbed them, sighing with exasperation.
It wasn’t the best of alley ways she found her-self in. But it wasn’t the worst either. A space located between several broken down buildings, with the walls literally fallen to pieces. Didn’t do much to keep out the rain or cold breeze, and it wasn’t exactly the cleanest of places. Not that she could expect desolate and abandoned back alleys to be clean, but still. It was, however, dry at the moment, and she could feel the bare rays of the sun dip past the five story buildings around her, peeking it’s way past the cracks and tickling her with warmth. She always did love sunshine.
From her place atop a makeshift seat, nothing more than a shoddily made box she’d found in one of the ruins, the fox-tail looked over her work station. To her left was another box with a mix of strong smelling herbs, small trinkets like forks or screws, paper and pen with ink, and a pile of mana crystals she’d been blessed with. The metal items she’d gathered were taken from the buildings around her, and the herbs acquired through friendly connections. The crystals the sorcerer was blessed with naturally, as part of a ‘bonus’ to her class as an alchemist. To her left was a pile of twigs and sticks she’d gathered from near by trees. She needed them to keep the fire burning whenever it got too low.
Alana picked up one of her gathered silverware, a spoon, and started toying with it. The fox-tail frowned in displease-ment, even boredom, as she eyed the cooking pot. It was a simple iron pot, which surprisingly enough wasn’t raided from any abandoned settlement but instead given to her by one of the people of the land she’d helped out; a token of thanks for spending a day round the shop helping with the chores. The old woman even threw in some paper and an old pen she didn’t want anymore. It was something Alana had been grateful for. With this pot, something sturdy even if it was second hand, the alchemist could pursue her studies in vigor.
Currently the pot was sitting atop a small burning pit, which she’d made by gathering up loose stones from around the back alley and digging out the pit with a particularly slanted rock. She wasn’t quite sure how a rock like that could come to be naturally, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Still, the fox-tail would need to get a shovel sooner or later. Preferably sooner than later. Alana rubbed her sore knees, acquired through forced digging on all fours. Not fun.
At the center of the burning pit, which edges were lined with a stone parameter, was of course her ‘alchemy pot’. Bubbling within was a murky, purple liquid. It smelled absolutely terrible; which was why Alana was once more thankful to the passing alchemist who most helpfully tipped her to bring some strong smelling herbs. When the smell got too bad for her, she could quickly swipe an herb and take one big, savoring huff of its fragrance. Which worked for a short term solution, but the sorcerer knew, in the deepest, darkest parts of her mind that she wasn’t going to get the smell out of her clothing for a long time.
This had better be worth it.
The idea was simple, explained that ever helpful gentleman she’d met. And was kind enough to write the instructions down for. Setting back down her spoon with its fellow silverware, Alana reached into the valley between her cleavage and pulled out a slim note. She only stopped for a second to smirk at her-self. In real life Alana couldn’t have dreamed to accomplish what she’d just done. The albino woman, despite how often her family tried to assure her she was pretty (and for a crippled, legally blind woman approaching her thirties she’d have to agree with them, in a fragile, waif sort of way) that didn’t change the fact that she was a bean pole. Now? Now she had curves that could turn heads. And this pleased her to no end.
Flicking the note open, Alana glanced over the instructions once more. The writing was shoddy at best; chicken scratch derived from ritual tap dancing of the poultry to their dark, ancient fowl gods at its worst. Or to put it in terms everyone could understand, the writing sucked. But Alana was a secretary by chosen profession, and reading nigh-illegible hand writing came with the job at times. So with a squint of the eyes and a click of the tongue, she’d folded up the note and sent it back down her shirt. Reaching over to the box laden with objects, she took up another mana crystal. It caught the suns rays for a brief moment, sparkling with purple illumination. Alana stopped, staring blankly at the shinning sphere, mouth parting. She turned it a bit in her hand, trying to catch a bit more of the sun’s grace, to see if the shinning could be toyed with.
“…Wow.” She finally said, quietly amazed at how the crystal caught the sun’s light. Lips parted into a smile, and the fox-tail decided that this particular crystal she’d be keeping for her-self. It wasn’t as if she was hurting for supplies, the game steadily providing them to her, so she could spare a favorite or two. Then Alana’s lips parted into a frown when contemplated where to stick the crystal, looking down her shirt. Soft and squishy and most definitely not enough friction for a place she’d want to place a smooth, round object that could slip out under her watch. Pockets it was then.
Slipping the sphere into safety, the sorcerer reached over to her stand for the next potential victim. All mana crystals, she’d found, could be either near identical or vastly different. The one she had before was a sphere, smoothed out like a pearl. The one she held was more akin to its name – crystalline and a bit rougher around the edges. It didn’t have nearly as nice a shine to it as its brother, and thus was unceremoniously dumped into the cooking pot. Well, not so much dumped as carefully dunked into the cooking pot. She tried dumping crystals into pots full of magical waste waters before earlier. It wasn’t, ah, pretty what it did to her clothes.
The goop being cooked accepted the new sacrifice eagerly, bubbling and sizzling with appreciation. The fox-tail looked at the disgusting soup in disgust. Was this really something starting alchemists dealt with? She knew, or at least thought she knew, what end game was. Magitek. The kind of stuff you’d see in fantasy games involving medieval like lands. Machinery fueled by magic, mostly, likes a gun or hovering disk ally. But this? This was a big stinking puddle of crap. Put the ‘foul’ back into foul sorcery, and stuck it right up her nostrils.
Frowning, she picked back up her spoon and stuck it into the goop, idily mixing the muck into a swirl in its pot. It belched out its disapproval, and Alana glared down at it. She gave it a few more experimental swirls before lifting a spoonful of purple gunk up into the air. Tipping it over, she could see the chunky substance, mixed with a thick sauce and bits of left over mana crystals, and watched it ooze its way back down into the pot. She narrowed her eyes at the monstrosity she’d made and clicked her tongue, alchemy class instincts telling her the stew wasn’t ready just yet.
Alana wasn’t sure how the mana crystals were breaking apart so easily in the stew. Sure, there were some crystals that broke apart in liquids – sugar crystals came to mind – but most were sturdy enough things that plain boiled water wasn’t going to touch them unless it got extreme with the temperatures. So why was it that these crystals seemed to slowly dissolve into bits over time? Was it due to their magical nature as mana crystals that such a thing was possible? Maybe it was because this was a freaky magical practice-not-quite-recipe-but still close enough that allowed for these crystalline structures to be broken down so easily when other times it’d be impossible? Alana didn’t know, but she’d be interested in finding out.
…Preferably through contemplation and reviewing previous notes than actually doing this again. God this stuff stank.
Reaching over and grabbing hold of one of the herbs, the fox-tail crammed it into her face and took a big whiff of its smell. Spicy goodness battled with the sour after-taste of dark magic, and won out in the end. The sorcerer felt her-self relax on her makeshift seat, and hummed, pleased with her-self. Her tail swished to and fro lazily, and a warm breeze blew its way past. Horrific alchemy experiment aside, today had been a fairly nice day, all things considering.
“…Now then,” she started, placing the herb back down and reaching over to one of the various trinkets on her crate. The fox-tail picked at random, without looking, and lifted up what used to be the top part of an old hammer. Looked more than just a bit rusted from it’s exposure to the wilds. Moving the tool over towards the pot, she gently dunked most of it into the gunk and held it there. The notes scribbled for her mentioned that it’d be better to do this sort of experiment with a mold or jar or the like to pour the stuff onto the object in question, but sinking the item in and holding it could work for this particular instance. It’d just make an already crude attempt at magical strengthening something even cruder. And tire out her arms, as it were. She had to hold it for ten minutes in the bubbling goop. This wasn’t going to be fun in the slightest.
She crossed her legs and with her free hand, placed her elbow on her upper knee and rested a cheek into her palm with a huff. Her other hand, holding the object, wasn’t showing any scenes of discomfort or strain. Alana wasn’t sure if that was because she was an adventurer, with all the super powers implied with it, or simply because it was a tiny object she was sinking into the pot. Even a few minutes later, the fox-tail still wasn’t sure which of the two it was. She’d be almost tempted to test her physical strength and stamina at hold tiny little things over burning pits, but feared that accidently dropping on of those would lead to another splash of purple pain and another ruining of her clothes.
“Fifty…fifty-one…” Alana counted off the seconds in every minute, hoping to give her-self something to do while she waited. When the final minute was up, she lifted the object out of the pot and watched a good chunk of its contents fall back into the primordial soup from which it came. She gave a careful glance over the hammer piece; slowly rotating it as she looked at its puddle covered self. Satisfied, or the closest she was ever going to feel regarding this experiment, the sorcerer set the goop covered hammer into the grass.
It was the first in a series of test experiment victims, she’d call them. A broken ladle, an old rusted fork, a piece of a shattered wooden bowl – which was considerably harder to find than the other two she found, could someone had raided all the bowls in this area? One by one each was slowly dipped into the sludge and held until the required time was met, before being pulled out and sat aside with their fellow victims.
With the final object done, Alana dusted off her hands even if she hadn’t actually touched anything dirty. She felt dirty being around this nasty stuff, so the sorcerer couldn’t help but wipe her hands. Reaching over to her stand box and taking the papers and pen, fluffy feather happily bobbing behind it, she dipping the edge into the ink and started jotting down notes.
First let us begin by listing the objects used in this experiment: a part of a hammer, a leftover of a ladle, a rust fork and a piece of a wooden bowl. Three of these items, the hammer, ladle and fork were all metals of some kind in differing sizes. The bowl, as mentioned previously, was wooden. It was specifically chosen as a means of exploring what the substance affects might have on a completely different material. Though I wish I’d chosen something that wasn’t previously stripped from a living thing, which adds in a biological aspect to its factors, but what can I do? I’ve had to take all of these from the surrounding area.
Alana stopped just long enough to reach her pen over to the box stand and take another dip of ink. She glared down at her notes which, to her astonishment, resembled the chicken scratch that the friendly alchemist had given her. Was this not a sign of that man’s own inability to write, but instead a part of their new system? Did she have to be a scribe to retain her own, previous pretty hand writing? Alana bit her lip. She’d spent hours before practicing her hand-writing to make it look pretty and graceful. It was especially important to someone who had so little she could be proud of physically. Now all those beautiful lines she used to be able to make are barely legible notes. She could cry over this, really!
Now let us move on to the substance that is part of this experiment. Using a recipe I acquired from a traveling alchemist, an elderly gentleman…who I failed to establish as an adventurer or not. The thought never crossed my mind at the time. Could it be that man was a Person of the Land? He seemed so…capable for his age. A life time of experience, I suppose, if you could claim a collection of zeros and ones with pre-programmed script having ‘experience’ but I digress, we’re moving away from the actual topic at hand.
Another dip.
The substance is made through a combination of boiling water and breaking apart mana crystals. I have absolutely not idea how this works. Mana crystals aren’t sugar crystals. They’re hard to break things. Yet the moment I toss them into the pot they start to swell and melt into the mix, with only a few select chunks left in the left over product. Its left me completely perplexed as to what can be happening here. Is it some kind of reaction to specific temperatures? Or maybe it’s because of this specific recipe I’m using? Is the system that makes up this world what causes this reaction in an otherwise stable crystalline object? I don’t know, but I’m moving away from the topic. Again.
Dip. And a quick glance over to her still boiling pot of alchemy. It looked perfectly content to sit there and gurgle its stinky fumes at her. Alana made a face.
This stuff smells absolutely terrible. Anyway, using the recipe the products had turned into a strange purple sludge with small sparks of magic, which I assume derives from the mana crystals used, swirling around within. As I have been told from the previously mentioned alchemist, it’s a rather crude form of magical strengthening of something. With it, one is intended to reinforce an item in some way. Exactly how it’s supposed to be ‘strengthened’ whether it be durability, power of strike, or something else entirely I don’t know. The elderly alchemist I talked with was a sly old coot who just gave me a wink and told me to discover it for my-self. He probably wanted to spice up what’s going to be a boring enchantment, I imagine, but at least he tried.
Dip dip. And the sorcerer gnawed on her ink pen’s feather a bit out of habit for nibbling the ends of pens in real life. She decided to have a bit more self-restraint after getting a taste of feather.
From what I’ve seen so far, going back to my first victim the hammer, it starts off as a gooey slop that slides and sticks to the object before solidifying. It kind of reminds me of paste used to make paper mache, come to think of it. Looking over the now dry hammer, the purple goo has hardened into a dry flaky material. I will now proceed to peel off its pieces to see if anything has happened underneath.
Setting down her pen and paper, Alana reached down to pick up the dry hammer. She frowned at the flaky bits that’d formed on the object, and the pieces of grass and dirt that’d gotten stuck to it as well. She really wished she had a cleaner work environment. With a sigh, the fox-tail decided to make the gravest of sacrifices – ruining her nice nails – in the name of science. Scraping at the purple flakes and dirt, the sorcerer slowly peeled away at the paper mache cocoon that’d formed around her impromptu experiment choice.
“Hmm,” she hummed contemplatively, scraping away the flakes. The underneath had been stained a steeled purple. Aiming it out to the suns rays to check it did, in fact, shine just a tiny bit like the mana crystals used to make this all possible. Cleaning off the rest of the substance, stow away dirt and all, she eyed the hammer for just another moment before setting it down on the stand. She reached for her notes and pen and got to writing.
The goop seems to have developed a purple sheen onto the object. From what my eyes are telling me, it really is nothing more than a boring enchantment. Just extra durability added to the base frame of the item. I imagine it’s the same deal with the other two objects, but it’s better to test it than assume. Who knows? Maybe it changes from object to object, not just specific item type but the individual item itself.
After peeling away the grim and dried sludge from the ladle and fork, the fox-tail had come to the conclusion that she was wrong.
No signs of anything more than increase durability with the other two metal objects. All of them share the same purple sheen coat on them, given by sludge. I’m tempted to just scrap the whole deal right now without bothering to look at the wooden bowl, but that wouldn’t be very scientific would it? I went through the trouble of locating all these objects and securing this location, might as well finish up what I started.
Placing the objects down next to the piece of hammer on the box stand, she reached down to the ground to pick up the wooden bowl. Because of its shape, she didn’t risk dipping near the whole thing like the others. The most it got was halfway, so the purple crust cocoon wasn’t near as covering on it as the others. Peeling away the accumulated purple flakes, she found the familiar shine and violet coloring. A quick glance at the piece informed her that yes, it had been no different from anything else that’d been dunked in this stinky goop. With a tired sigh, she placed the bowl down with its sludge brothers and lifted up her pen once more.
A bit anti-climatic for me, but what was I too expect with something that was made for beginners? It’s almost like being a child with one of those store bought science kits. You get all excited at how you’re going to be a scientist and the most you can manage is make it fizzle a bit out of your beaker. The wooden bowl, like everything else I stuck into the pot, carried the same durability boost as the other objects regardless of the fact that it was wooden, and biological, aspect. All I really managed to do was make it a little bit tougher and a lovely purple coloring.
Not that having a prettier bowl wasn’t nice or anything, but it wasn’t what she wanted.
Setting the paper and pen aside, the sorcerer picked up another of those lovely fragrant herbs and enjoyed a rather savoring sniff. One of the things she’d forgotten to write in her notes was that these goop blessed objects carried their blesser’s stench; which gave the purple soup a very, very limited life span in her growing tricks of alchemy. With one more final whiff, she returned it to the herb pile and reluctantly got to her feet. Alana stared down at the monster she’d brought into this world, and wondered if she couldn’t just get away with putting out the fire and tipping the thing into the ground? Would that be considered a biohazard to the area around them? Probably. Would be better to simply drag the pot into one of the abandoned builds and dump it in there. Not that it couldn’t leak its way through the floor boards and into the soil eventually, but it’d be like a filter right? Right? Right.
“Right,” she convinced her-self, slapping a clenched fist into an open palm. “Time to get rid of the evidence, I suppose.” Of course, the fox-tail knew that the thing was going to be hot – she’d watched it boil for at least an hour – and started with tossing dirt and sand into the fire underneath it. Alana worked to fill in the pit she’d made to snuff out the fire and managed to, through some time, snuff the final sparks from this world.
“Now all I need to do is weight for it to cool down,” Alana sat her rear back down on the box she’d used as an impromptu stool and glared at the still very much hot pot. In hindsight, what with her knowing ahead of time she was going to boil something, she really should have thought to bring some kind of glove or towel so she could pick it up to dump. Now she was going to have to sit here and watch the thing until it cooled down enough to be touched.
“Humph,” she huffed grumpily, resuming a familiar position of crossed legs and hand on cheek. This entire experiment had gotten her some experience in alchemy, she knew, and the patients she built up dealing with this…stuff would work for her in the long run, Alana understood but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy sitting around for the next half hour with a stinky pot of alchemic substance that she’d rather have eagerly dumped into the closest building as soon as possible.
Pulling a herb from the pile, she crammed it into her nose and watched the pot bubble and fizzle with all the interest she would watching paint dry.
So fascinating. She thought dryly.
---
Word Count: 4011
OOC: I like to think the elderly alchemist that handed off this not quite recipe was a not!zelretch who was trolling Alana. Because that's amusing to me. Also, HERB HUFFING.
Some might describe it as the forerunner of sciences. Back in a time when mystery still surrounded the world and men claimed them-selves capable of turning lead to gold or create eternal youth potions. Others would say it’s a long standing tradition that set it-self as the bases for modern day chemistry, and back in its hay day made numerous contributions to both medical and physical sciences.
For Alana, it was sitting hunched over a tiny pot in a back alley.
Her toy had been set on the shelf for the day, and the fox-tail had quietly squirreled her-self away into seclusion to focus on her craft. Okami was a social butterfly, cheerful and loving, always running across the landscape to examine the slightest movements. Which, naturally, lead to her accomplishing absolutely nothing of note progress wise on their alchemy class. Her. Her alchemy class. Not theirs. Alana placed two thumbs between her temples and rubbed them, sighing with exasperation.
It wasn’t the best of alley ways she found her-self in. But it wasn’t the worst either. A space located between several broken down buildings, with the walls literally fallen to pieces. Didn’t do much to keep out the rain or cold breeze, and it wasn’t exactly the cleanest of places. Not that she could expect desolate and abandoned back alleys to be clean, but still. It was, however, dry at the moment, and she could feel the bare rays of the sun dip past the five story buildings around her, peeking it’s way past the cracks and tickling her with warmth. She always did love sunshine.
From her place atop a makeshift seat, nothing more than a shoddily made box she’d found in one of the ruins, the fox-tail looked over her work station. To her left was another box with a mix of strong smelling herbs, small trinkets like forks or screws, paper and pen with ink, and a pile of mana crystals she’d been blessed with. The metal items she’d gathered were taken from the buildings around her, and the herbs acquired through friendly connections. The crystals the sorcerer was blessed with naturally, as part of a ‘bonus’ to her class as an alchemist. To her left was a pile of twigs and sticks she’d gathered from near by trees. She needed them to keep the fire burning whenever it got too low.
Alana picked up one of her gathered silverware, a spoon, and started toying with it. The fox-tail frowned in displease-ment, even boredom, as she eyed the cooking pot. It was a simple iron pot, which surprisingly enough wasn’t raided from any abandoned settlement but instead given to her by one of the people of the land she’d helped out; a token of thanks for spending a day round the shop helping with the chores. The old woman even threw in some paper and an old pen she didn’t want anymore. It was something Alana had been grateful for. With this pot, something sturdy even if it was second hand, the alchemist could pursue her studies in vigor.
Currently the pot was sitting atop a small burning pit, which she’d made by gathering up loose stones from around the back alley and digging out the pit with a particularly slanted rock. She wasn’t quite sure how a rock like that could come to be naturally, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Still, the fox-tail would need to get a shovel sooner or later. Preferably sooner than later. Alana rubbed her sore knees, acquired through forced digging on all fours. Not fun.
At the center of the burning pit, which edges were lined with a stone parameter, was of course her ‘alchemy pot’. Bubbling within was a murky, purple liquid. It smelled absolutely terrible; which was why Alana was once more thankful to the passing alchemist who most helpfully tipped her to bring some strong smelling herbs. When the smell got too bad for her, she could quickly swipe an herb and take one big, savoring huff of its fragrance. Which worked for a short term solution, but the sorcerer knew, in the deepest, darkest parts of her mind that she wasn’t going to get the smell out of her clothing for a long time.
This had better be worth it.
The idea was simple, explained that ever helpful gentleman she’d met. And was kind enough to write the instructions down for. Setting back down her spoon with its fellow silverware, Alana reached into the valley between her cleavage and pulled out a slim note. She only stopped for a second to smirk at her-self. In real life Alana couldn’t have dreamed to accomplish what she’d just done. The albino woman, despite how often her family tried to assure her she was pretty (and for a crippled, legally blind woman approaching her thirties she’d have to agree with them, in a fragile, waif sort of way) that didn’t change the fact that she was a bean pole. Now? Now she had curves that could turn heads. And this pleased her to no end.
Flicking the note open, Alana glanced over the instructions once more. The writing was shoddy at best; chicken scratch derived from ritual tap dancing of the poultry to their dark, ancient fowl gods at its worst. Or to put it in terms everyone could understand, the writing sucked. But Alana was a secretary by chosen profession, and reading nigh-illegible hand writing came with the job at times. So with a squint of the eyes and a click of the tongue, she’d folded up the note and sent it back down her shirt. Reaching over to the box laden with objects, she took up another mana crystal. It caught the suns rays for a brief moment, sparkling with purple illumination. Alana stopped, staring blankly at the shinning sphere, mouth parting. She turned it a bit in her hand, trying to catch a bit more of the sun’s grace, to see if the shinning could be toyed with.
“…Wow.” She finally said, quietly amazed at how the crystal caught the sun’s light. Lips parted into a smile, and the fox-tail decided that this particular crystal she’d be keeping for her-self. It wasn’t as if she was hurting for supplies, the game steadily providing them to her, so she could spare a favorite or two. Then Alana’s lips parted into a frown when contemplated where to stick the crystal, looking down her shirt. Soft and squishy and most definitely not enough friction for a place she’d want to place a smooth, round object that could slip out under her watch. Pockets it was then.
Slipping the sphere into safety, the sorcerer reached over to her stand for the next potential victim. All mana crystals, she’d found, could be either near identical or vastly different. The one she had before was a sphere, smoothed out like a pearl. The one she held was more akin to its name – crystalline and a bit rougher around the edges. It didn’t have nearly as nice a shine to it as its brother, and thus was unceremoniously dumped into the cooking pot. Well, not so much dumped as carefully dunked into the cooking pot. She tried dumping crystals into pots full of magical waste waters before earlier. It wasn’t, ah, pretty what it did to her clothes.
The goop being cooked accepted the new sacrifice eagerly, bubbling and sizzling with appreciation. The fox-tail looked at the disgusting soup in disgust. Was this really something starting alchemists dealt with? She knew, or at least thought she knew, what end game was. Magitek. The kind of stuff you’d see in fantasy games involving medieval like lands. Machinery fueled by magic, mostly, likes a gun or hovering disk ally. But this? This was a big stinking puddle of crap. Put the ‘foul’ back into foul sorcery, and stuck it right up her nostrils.
Frowning, she picked back up her spoon and stuck it into the goop, idily mixing the muck into a swirl in its pot. It belched out its disapproval, and Alana glared down at it. She gave it a few more experimental swirls before lifting a spoonful of purple gunk up into the air. Tipping it over, she could see the chunky substance, mixed with a thick sauce and bits of left over mana crystals, and watched it ooze its way back down into the pot. She narrowed her eyes at the monstrosity she’d made and clicked her tongue, alchemy class instincts telling her the stew wasn’t ready just yet.
Alana wasn’t sure how the mana crystals were breaking apart so easily in the stew. Sure, there were some crystals that broke apart in liquids – sugar crystals came to mind – but most were sturdy enough things that plain boiled water wasn’t going to touch them unless it got extreme with the temperatures. So why was it that these crystals seemed to slowly dissolve into bits over time? Was it due to their magical nature as mana crystals that such a thing was possible? Maybe it was because this was a freaky magical practice-not-quite-recipe-but still close enough that allowed for these crystalline structures to be broken down so easily when other times it’d be impossible? Alana didn’t know, but she’d be interested in finding out.
…Preferably through contemplation and reviewing previous notes than actually doing this again. God this stuff stank.
Reaching over and grabbing hold of one of the herbs, the fox-tail crammed it into her face and took a big whiff of its smell. Spicy goodness battled with the sour after-taste of dark magic, and won out in the end. The sorcerer felt her-self relax on her makeshift seat, and hummed, pleased with her-self. Her tail swished to and fro lazily, and a warm breeze blew its way past. Horrific alchemy experiment aside, today had been a fairly nice day, all things considering.
“…Now then,” she started, placing the herb back down and reaching over to one of the various trinkets on her crate. The fox-tail picked at random, without looking, and lifted up what used to be the top part of an old hammer. Looked more than just a bit rusted from it’s exposure to the wilds. Moving the tool over towards the pot, she gently dunked most of it into the gunk and held it there. The notes scribbled for her mentioned that it’d be better to do this sort of experiment with a mold or jar or the like to pour the stuff onto the object in question, but sinking the item in and holding it could work for this particular instance. It’d just make an already crude attempt at magical strengthening something even cruder. And tire out her arms, as it were. She had to hold it for ten minutes in the bubbling goop. This wasn’t going to be fun in the slightest.
She crossed her legs and with her free hand, placed her elbow on her upper knee and rested a cheek into her palm with a huff. Her other hand, holding the object, wasn’t showing any scenes of discomfort or strain. Alana wasn’t sure if that was because she was an adventurer, with all the super powers implied with it, or simply because it was a tiny object she was sinking into the pot. Even a few minutes later, the fox-tail still wasn’t sure which of the two it was. She’d be almost tempted to test her physical strength and stamina at hold tiny little things over burning pits, but feared that accidently dropping on of those would lead to another splash of purple pain and another ruining of her clothes.
“Fifty…fifty-one…” Alana counted off the seconds in every minute, hoping to give her-self something to do while she waited. When the final minute was up, she lifted the object out of the pot and watched a good chunk of its contents fall back into the primordial soup from which it came. She gave a careful glance over the hammer piece; slowly rotating it as she looked at its puddle covered self. Satisfied, or the closest she was ever going to feel regarding this experiment, the sorcerer set the goop covered hammer into the grass.
It was the first in a series of test experiment victims, she’d call them. A broken ladle, an old rusted fork, a piece of a shattered wooden bowl – which was considerably harder to find than the other two she found, could someone had raided all the bowls in this area? One by one each was slowly dipped into the sludge and held until the required time was met, before being pulled out and sat aside with their fellow victims.
With the final object done, Alana dusted off her hands even if she hadn’t actually touched anything dirty. She felt dirty being around this nasty stuff, so the sorcerer couldn’t help but wipe her hands. Reaching over to her stand box and taking the papers and pen, fluffy feather happily bobbing behind it, she dipping the edge into the ink and started jotting down notes.
First let us begin by listing the objects used in this experiment: a part of a hammer, a leftover of a ladle, a rust fork and a piece of a wooden bowl. Three of these items, the hammer, ladle and fork were all metals of some kind in differing sizes. The bowl, as mentioned previously, was wooden. It was specifically chosen as a means of exploring what the substance affects might have on a completely different material. Though I wish I’d chosen something that wasn’t previously stripped from a living thing, which adds in a biological aspect to its factors, but what can I do? I’ve had to take all of these from the surrounding area.
Alana stopped just long enough to reach her pen over to the box stand and take another dip of ink. She glared down at her notes which, to her astonishment, resembled the chicken scratch that the friendly alchemist had given her. Was this not a sign of that man’s own inability to write, but instead a part of their new system? Did she have to be a scribe to retain her own, previous pretty hand writing? Alana bit her lip. She’d spent hours before practicing her hand-writing to make it look pretty and graceful. It was especially important to someone who had so little she could be proud of physically. Now all those beautiful lines she used to be able to make are barely legible notes. She could cry over this, really!
Now let us move on to the substance that is part of this experiment. Using a recipe I acquired from a traveling alchemist, an elderly gentleman…who I failed to establish as an adventurer or not. The thought never crossed my mind at the time. Could it be that man was a Person of the Land? He seemed so…capable for his age. A life time of experience, I suppose, if you could claim a collection of zeros and ones with pre-programmed script having ‘experience’ but I digress, we’re moving away from the actual topic at hand.
Another dip.
The substance is made through a combination of boiling water and breaking apart mana crystals. I have absolutely not idea how this works. Mana crystals aren’t sugar crystals. They’re hard to break things. Yet the moment I toss them into the pot they start to swell and melt into the mix, with only a few select chunks left in the left over product. Its left me completely perplexed as to what can be happening here. Is it some kind of reaction to specific temperatures? Or maybe it’s because of this specific recipe I’m using? Is the system that makes up this world what causes this reaction in an otherwise stable crystalline object? I don’t know, but I’m moving away from the topic. Again.
Dip. And a quick glance over to her still boiling pot of alchemy. It looked perfectly content to sit there and gurgle its stinky fumes at her. Alana made a face.
This stuff smells absolutely terrible. Anyway, using the recipe the products had turned into a strange purple sludge with small sparks of magic, which I assume derives from the mana crystals used, swirling around within. As I have been told from the previously mentioned alchemist, it’s a rather crude form of magical strengthening of something. With it, one is intended to reinforce an item in some way. Exactly how it’s supposed to be ‘strengthened’ whether it be durability, power of strike, or something else entirely I don’t know. The elderly alchemist I talked with was a sly old coot who just gave me a wink and told me to discover it for my-self. He probably wanted to spice up what’s going to be a boring enchantment, I imagine, but at least he tried.
Dip dip. And the sorcerer gnawed on her ink pen’s feather a bit out of habit for nibbling the ends of pens in real life. She decided to have a bit more self-restraint after getting a taste of feather.
From what I’ve seen so far, going back to my first victim the hammer, it starts off as a gooey slop that slides and sticks to the object before solidifying. It kind of reminds me of paste used to make paper mache, come to think of it. Looking over the now dry hammer, the purple goo has hardened into a dry flaky material. I will now proceed to peel off its pieces to see if anything has happened underneath.
Setting down her pen and paper, Alana reached down to pick up the dry hammer. She frowned at the flaky bits that’d formed on the object, and the pieces of grass and dirt that’d gotten stuck to it as well. She really wished she had a cleaner work environment. With a sigh, the fox-tail decided to make the gravest of sacrifices – ruining her nice nails – in the name of science. Scraping at the purple flakes and dirt, the sorcerer slowly peeled away at the paper mache cocoon that’d formed around her impromptu experiment choice.
“Hmm,” she hummed contemplatively, scraping away the flakes. The underneath had been stained a steeled purple. Aiming it out to the suns rays to check it did, in fact, shine just a tiny bit like the mana crystals used to make this all possible. Cleaning off the rest of the substance, stow away dirt and all, she eyed the hammer for just another moment before setting it down on the stand. She reached for her notes and pen and got to writing.
The goop seems to have developed a purple sheen onto the object. From what my eyes are telling me, it really is nothing more than a boring enchantment. Just extra durability added to the base frame of the item. I imagine it’s the same deal with the other two objects, but it’s better to test it than assume. Who knows? Maybe it changes from object to object, not just specific item type but the individual item itself.
After peeling away the grim and dried sludge from the ladle and fork, the fox-tail had come to the conclusion that she was wrong.
No signs of anything more than increase durability with the other two metal objects. All of them share the same purple sheen coat on them, given by sludge. I’m tempted to just scrap the whole deal right now without bothering to look at the wooden bowl, but that wouldn’t be very scientific would it? I went through the trouble of locating all these objects and securing this location, might as well finish up what I started.
Placing the objects down next to the piece of hammer on the box stand, she reached down to the ground to pick up the wooden bowl. Because of its shape, she didn’t risk dipping near the whole thing like the others. The most it got was halfway, so the purple crust cocoon wasn’t near as covering on it as the others. Peeling away the accumulated purple flakes, she found the familiar shine and violet coloring. A quick glance at the piece informed her that yes, it had been no different from anything else that’d been dunked in this stinky goop. With a tired sigh, she placed the bowl down with its sludge brothers and lifted up her pen once more.
A bit anti-climatic for me, but what was I too expect with something that was made for beginners? It’s almost like being a child with one of those store bought science kits. You get all excited at how you’re going to be a scientist and the most you can manage is make it fizzle a bit out of your beaker. The wooden bowl, like everything else I stuck into the pot, carried the same durability boost as the other objects regardless of the fact that it was wooden, and biological, aspect. All I really managed to do was make it a little bit tougher and a lovely purple coloring.
Not that having a prettier bowl wasn’t nice or anything, but it wasn’t what she wanted.
Setting the paper and pen aside, the sorcerer picked up another of those lovely fragrant herbs and enjoyed a rather savoring sniff. One of the things she’d forgotten to write in her notes was that these goop blessed objects carried their blesser’s stench; which gave the purple soup a very, very limited life span in her growing tricks of alchemy. With one more final whiff, she returned it to the herb pile and reluctantly got to her feet. Alana stared down at the monster she’d brought into this world, and wondered if she couldn’t just get away with putting out the fire and tipping the thing into the ground? Would that be considered a biohazard to the area around them? Probably. Would be better to simply drag the pot into one of the abandoned builds and dump it in there. Not that it couldn’t leak its way through the floor boards and into the soil eventually, but it’d be like a filter right? Right? Right.
“Right,” she convinced her-self, slapping a clenched fist into an open palm. “Time to get rid of the evidence, I suppose.” Of course, the fox-tail knew that the thing was going to be hot – she’d watched it boil for at least an hour – and started with tossing dirt and sand into the fire underneath it. Alana worked to fill in the pit she’d made to snuff out the fire and managed to, through some time, snuff the final sparks from this world.
“Now all I need to do is weight for it to cool down,” Alana sat her rear back down on the box she’d used as an impromptu stool and glared at the still very much hot pot. In hindsight, what with her knowing ahead of time she was going to boil something, she really should have thought to bring some kind of glove or towel so she could pick it up to dump. Now she was going to have to sit here and watch the thing until it cooled down enough to be touched.
“Humph,” she huffed grumpily, resuming a familiar position of crossed legs and hand on cheek. This entire experiment had gotten her some experience in alchemy, she knew, and the patients she built up dealing with this…stuff would work for her in the long run, Alana understood but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy sitting around for the next half hour with a stinky pot of alchemic substance that she’d rather have eagerly dumped into the closest building as soon as possible.
Pulling a herb from the pile, she crammed it into her nose and watched the pot bubble and fizzle with all the interest she would watching paint dry.
So fascinating. She thought dryly.
---
Word Count: 4011
OOC: I like to think the elderly alchemist that handed off this not quite recipe was a not!zelretch who was trolling Alana. Because that's amusing to me. Also, HERB HUFFING.
