52nd of Ymiden, 720
Standing in perfect and complete stillness was all Zemos could do not to jump halfway across the lab, capering all the way while sprinkling poisonous material everywhere. His hand hovered, frozen, over a phial of dangerous nerve toxin, a created concoction for the current class assignment that if absorbed through the skin, could kill the feeling for days, even until death. He knew very well his days at that wondrous institution would be numbered if he just listened...
"Share! SHAAAARE!! Sprinkle ichor like beauty all over the flesh of mortality!" The egg urged him. Yet he held his hand fast over the phial. He didn't trust himself with the liquid, much as he wanted to take it in hand and run it through a few more processes of distillation.
But no. Soph woud have to handle it. He turned his head to his lab partner. She'd agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to go along with enrollment of a lesser degree in poisons. In her mind, Zemos surmised that she was weighing the value of poisons and drugs to alchemy, which was the primary focus of her studies. Zemos didn't know much about alchemy, save that it was useful to transfer properties of one material to another.
It was an interesting proposition, alchemy. He wondered though, if it was possible, as she suggested, to transfer the effects of a poison to a permanent object. He shrugged at the thought, thinking that it was easier to make a cocktail of poison on the fly,. rather than spend seasons upon seasons to master a new skill, to make a singular item. He knew she was using that as an example to impress him, yet it was not well received. He liked the idea of furthering the science of toxins, and that meant progression, experimentation, and constant improvement. Setting a singular inferior poison into an object was a sin. Experimentation and improvement upon prior designs was the highest virtue. Or so it seemed to Zemos.
"Sophia, please take this phial and distill another leaf of Rharnean Tomato." He spoke in Xanthean. He was surprised but she insisted he always speak Xanthean to her. She enjoyed the extra layer of privacy it allowed them when among other students, or his poor common offended her ears. It could very well have been a combination of both possibilities.
Zemos furrowed his brow, thinking to himself. His eyes trailed to a bug, one of those that had been migrating to Viden of late this season. He stared for a second too long, as it took to the wing. It flew right onto his sleeve. Without thinking, he grabbed the pill-shaped bug and threw it into the alembic, before Sophia put in the leaf and the essence of toxin she was working on. She didn't seem to notice. Not that he thought she'd mind. She'd come to accept his 'eccentricities' as she called them, as it kept the other students from seeking her out for help as long as she hung around him. She'd confessed to as much during their initial meeting in the Atheneum, after she smushed the bookworm.
So, while she used him to enhance her solitude, he used her to alleviate his loneliness. It was fairly damned ironic, and yet made perfect sense to Zemos. He wasn't one to argue, at any rate. It prevented him from making a fool of himself by speaking his piss poor common, at least until it came to instances where he had to speak to the professor. But those instances were few and far between.
The process of distillation was not one that could be expedited. Even in a small alembic such as the one they used in these labs, the process could take hours to produce one single drop of essential fluid. Whether that fluid be an oil, an alcohol, or something else. Zemos was a bit paranoid, and overzealous in his interest to not waste a single potential drop. Sophia had laughed several times at him as he set the phial under the alembic's snout, when they hadn't even finished loading it with material.
Zemos didn't mind her mockery. He joined in her laughter, with a face eager for seeing the results of their experimentation. So, he waited, through the night and even after everyone left, maintaining his presence in the lab in order to see the essence captured in that phial.
His head tilted, every other bit until at last he fell asleep, waiting for a singular drop of poison oil to filter out through the process of distillation in the alembic. Thus, he slept and dreamt, of what was another story, perhaps.
"Something smells really nice in here..." Came the voice of a student, newly arrived to the laboratories. Zemos' head shot up in alarm, as he scurried to check the flame on the alembic. It'd long since guttered out, perhaps running out of fuel or else extinguished by a custodian who arrived after Zemos had drifted off to sleep.
Zemos tilted his head upward, and he sniffed the air. Something did smell nice. Almost like the fine incenses of his people in Desnind would burn outside their windows. The scent and essence of gathered leaves... an earthy and green odor that spoke to the vitality of nature. Yet, what did that say of the oil's toxicity? Zemos was eager to test it.
Fortunately, for him, Sophia was soon to arrive with an old, caged rat, who was borrowed from another lab for testing their solution. Zemos could've hugged her, to take the initiative like that. But he respected her space too much, knowing that she detested human contact under most circumstances. Or claimed to.
Share? The egg chimed in, as his hand wrapped around the phial of essential droplets. In all that time of distillation, only a small fraction of the phial was filled with the oil they desired. Then there was the run off, the vapors of the water and alcohol that went through separate channels in condensation, and collected in larger beakers. Zemos gave these a wary eye for but a moment before returning to the fruits of their labors. The essence.
Zemos propped the bottle up in reverence before Sophia. It was her rat, so she would get most of the credit for this. She was really doing him a favor by letting him study with her, and bringing along materials for them to test their toxins on.
"You have a binder, from the essence?" Sophia quirked a brow at Zemos, and then recognition dawned on his face.
He scrambled about the lab space, and began cobbling together a binder and anti-toxin that he believed would neutralize whatever poison they'd created. Then again, as he passed by the phial, he was reminded how nice it smelled. Like a perfume almost.
After about half a break, he'd managed to gather together what he thought was a workable antitoxin, to use on the old rat, should it survive the first dosage of its poison. Sophia nodded to Zemos. She dipped a glass wand into the phial, gathering a droplet of the essence. This, she smeared on some cheese, which was then plopped in front of the old rodent. The rodent sniffed the air in its cage, and then proceeded toward the food.
Zemos' heart caught in his chest. This was it! He would see the fruits of his labors, the consequence of his process realized! He would...
The old rat ate the cheese with relish, and didn't seem at all put off or harmed by the poison. They waited several moments, without applying the anti-toxin. Nothing happened to the rat, other than its breath was possibly improved by the nice smelling essence.
"What happened! What did I do wrong?!" Zemos complained loudly in Xanthean. Sophia could only roll her eyes at him.
"This is how experimentation works, Zemos. We keep trying different things, using what we know and hopefully that leads to something we can use. For what it's worth, I think you've created a novel perfume essence. I think you should hang on to it, as a keepsake if nothing else?" She smiled at him, teasing.
Zemos' face was stuck, contorted in a frown that would not budge as he accepted the phial along with a cork stopper to keep the fluid inside. He'd taken it upon himself to write down the ingredients on his poor-quality study materials. If they survived, at least he'd have the recipe for a good perfume essence.
Yet he couldn't help but feel he was a failure. The Egg inside of him shrieked in frustration and unrequited sadism. They spent the rest of the laboratory time, testing out different ingredients that were known to be poisons. Perhaps at the end of their latest session, they'd at least have something that could make the old rat uncomfortable, if not dead as a door stop.
Zemos and Sophia worked through the morning and well into afternoon, trying to devise a more known toxin. Novel toxins were beyond their abilities, at least for now.
