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[Vluharqih]

30th of Zi'da, Arc 716

Yesterday she had met Tristan again to pick up her statue. It was as glorious as she had expected, perfect for what she had wanted. Now just have to make the candles she thought to herself, but that would have to wait.

Careful to make it seem casual, Alex had inquired about his alchemy- had he been serious about helping her? Even if Tristan could only make one dress that was as strong as chainmail, Alex would have been more than happy to pay him for it. At this point, her few dresses were starting to look worn.

Alex knocked on the door, waiting for Tristan to come and answer it. The bolt of cloth they would be working on was tucked securely under her arm a beautiful black fabric. It wouldn’t be high fashion, but it also wouldn’t’ be so obvious as to be out of fashion anytime soon. Mentally, Alex thanked Faith for the brief overview of fashion tips and tricks she had given her. Over the trials her anger had faded and she was resigned to never seeing the woman again. Alex had wanted to see Tristan’s work first hand, and Alchemy was interesting to her. If she could learn how to do it herself…well that would be as useful as all her poison knowledge combined.

“King Cassander! What a surprise to see you here, Your Highness,” Alex said when the door opened. She dropped into a curtsey again, fighting to keep a smile off her face. “I was wondering if Lord Venora was in residence- I have an appointment with him, and would hate to keep him waiting. Did you know that he knows alchemy?” Alex dropped her voice into a stage whisper as if revealing an interesting piece of court gossip.

[Tristan Venora]

Tristan was in a state of absolute panic! Why had he told Alex that he was an alchemist and offered to make the dress that Padraig had refused to make? He should just have told her that he had stupidly been trying to deep fry ice cubes. It would have been awkward and embarrassing, and she might have refused to do business with him, but losing a few nels was better than losing your life!

Oh, he had been to the library when she had decided to accept his offer, but reading all those books had only led to more questions rather than answering the ones that he had about alchemy. All that he knew with certainty was that alchemy was very, very dangerous, especially if you were trying to create a powerful item and that things had the tendency to explode.

She wanted a dress that was as strong as chainmail. With his very limited knowledge of alchemy and non-existent knowledge of chemistry as well as other sciences Tristan had concluded that he needed a substance that already had that property – as strong as chainmail – and transfer it to the dress somehow.

To be on the safe side he had gotten a whole lot of different stuff that was or might be as strong as chainmail – including a box of iron filings and an actual chainmail tunic. He had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to combine the cloth and the chainmail tunic though!

As Alex knocked, he considered hiding under the table or jumping out of a window for a moment, but he had the feeling that she would just follow him if he decided to run, so he eventually put on his best fake smile and opened the door. As she called him Cassander his mood brightened somewhat. He wasn’t particularly keen on blowing himself up with alchemy, but he absolutely loved being treated like a king!

“Lady Alex! It’s good to see you again!” he replied and feigned surprise. “I had absolutely no idea that Lord Venora is an alchemist. He is truly one of the most knowledgeable men in Idalos! He is waiting for you in his workshop. Did you know that he transformed it into a laboratory?”

Having said that, he gestured for her to accompany him to said laboratory/workshop. Even after all that research he still didn’t know much about alchemy besides how easy it was to kill yourself with it, but he was quite a competent actor. Maybe he’d survive the trial if he just treated it like his newest and most challenging role and used the things that he had learned at the theatre!

► Show Spoiler

OOC: This is what Tristan bought:

Chemist’s Kit – 115 gn
Chainmail – 20 gn
Chain coif - 10 gn

More items will likely be bought in the course of the thread.

I have no idea how much iron filings cost. Hopefully the reviewer will be able to help.

[Vluharqih]

"I did not," Alex exclaimed. "I see he has given up on using his kitchen as a laboratory- Probably a good call, from what I've seen of alchemy. Would you care to show me the way?"

She carefully followed behind Tristan to his workshop, keeping up conversation the whole way there.

"So, how is this going to work? What's the plan?" Her eagerness overwhelmed her again, much as it had the last time she had the opportunity to see alchemy. Faith's description of her as an excited puppy was entirely accurate as she nearly pranced around. "I don't know much about alchemy, maybe you could tell me how it works? I know from working with those other two that you needed to work with the cloth itself, not a finished product, so I made sure to bring a whole roll!"

Mentally, Alex reviewed everything she could remember of alchemy. The cloth was needed, there was a limit on how many enchantments could do, but that wasn't relevant at the moment. There was something else...what was it. Oh right. This was dangerous and could explode if it didn't go well. Suddenly, partway to his lab, Alex recalled the exploded kitchen. Was she sure about this?

The rest of the walk was quiet on Alex's part.

When she arrived in the workshop she looked around in awe. It was totally different from the last time she had been there. His tools and sculptures were nowhere to be seen, the counters covered in a variety of tools and beakers and materials. She caught sight of a chainmail tunic, bits of iron fillings, even what looked like a hunk of stone, though that could have been leftover from his sculpting. Her misgivings disappeared as fast as shadows before a flame.

"So," she repeated, spinning to face him. "Where do we begin? What can I do?"

[Tristan Venora]

“Well“, Tristan began as Alex asked him how it worked and scratched his head because he was quite unsure of it. For a moment he seriously wondered what would happen if he told her that he didn’t really know how it worked either, and then he came to the conclusion that the consequences of that would be really unpleasant. So he proclaimed, “As you said you need to work with the cloth itself. The alchemical stuff needs to be put into the cloth before it is turned into a dress. It needs to be in every single fibre of the cloth. The exact process depends on the material of course. Metal needs a different kind of treatment than stone.”

Having said that, he beamed at her. He was really proud of himself because it had sounded so good. The next time he visited Rynmere Theatre, he decided, he would tell Lady Jane Andaris, the manager, that he wanted the leading role in a play because he was an awesome actor and clearly very imaginative. It was just then that something else occurred to him though. The smile on his face abruptly disappeared, and he looked at Alex somewhat worriedly for a moment. He had no idea how he was going to fake that!

“Am I also supposed to sew the dress?” he asked. He didn’t even know how to mend his socks!

“First of all”, he replied as they stood in his workshop. He tried to look and sound self-confident because a real alchemist would be self-confident. “You need to decide what you want to use for the strong-as-chainmail effect. I have iron filings, I have chainmail - and I have this here!”

He walked over to a mysterious object that was covered by a piece of cloth. As he lifted the cloth, Alex could see that it was a sculpture. It was a sculpture of a man, a fierce warrior with a big sword – and green skin and three eyes. It was one of his older works. He hadn’t been quite as good a sculptor when he had made it, but it was still a very, very good sculpture, and he looked at Alex as if he expected her to compliment his skill.

“We could also use this, I suppose, if you don’t feel like destroying sculptures”, he continued and pointed at a hunk of stone that was lying on the floor.

“So what shall it be?” he asked. As he waited for her answer, he grabbed something from a shelf – or rather two somethings. He returned to her with an axe in one hand and a hammer in the other hand, grinning like a madman. He had just figured out how he was going to combine the hard stuff and the cloth – or rather, he had figured out the first step.

“Whatever you decide on, it needs to be broken into small pieces before we can use it on the cloth – unless you decide on the iron filings. We can probably use them as is.”

He hoped that she would pick the chainmail tunic, the stone or the sculpture. He was really looking forward to smashing something into small pieces!

► Show Spoiler

OOC: Bought: hand axe - 15 gn

[Vluharqih]

Alex nodded along as Tristan talked about the process. What he was saying made sense; the fact that each material needed something different was something Padraig hadn't talked about with her, though it made sense. From her experience with poisons, one couldn't treat all accelerators the same way- some would work as a powder, others as a liquid.

Alex was sutiably impressed. Tristan really seemed to know what he was talking about, and his broad smile made Alex grin back at him.

"Why of course King Cassander! I expected nothing less of you!" She exclaimed, that smile stuck to her face. Why was she smiling so much around him? this was totally out of character for her. A brief scowl crossed her face as she thought about it, quickly wiped away as she schooled her face back to calmness.

"But no, I'll have someone else sew the dress, no need to worry about that."

He returned to his self-confident self, and Alex's smile stealthily worked it's way back onto her face. "Let's try a bit of everything! I think we can cut the cloth in half- I got more than enough in case something went wrong."

When he revealed his work, Alex peered closer. "I like it- I can definitely tell it's yours! You like taking the unseen and making it real, don't you?" She drew closer, peering at it. It wasn't as good as his other work, but Alex could appreciate it nonetheless. "Is this one of your older pieces? Between this and the two-headed dog, I'm gonna start thinking you're always on drugs," she said with a chuckle.

Alex stepped back and looked around curiously at her options. Hmm, what to do. She really had no idea. Her previous foray had been cut short by an "invitation" from the Cauldron that wasn't optional. She thought back to what had transpired that evening and shook her head. Always something new with them, that much was for sure.

"I like using the chainmail itself. I think that way should work pretty well, but I'm not the alchemist here. I also want to use stone, though whether we use your old sculpture or the hunk is up to you. Do you feel like destroying your work?" She asked him, her eyes locking onto his.

She took the hammer from him, nodding along. That was something she was used to- grinding down the product prior to adding it together. "If you don't mind my asking, how are we going to add the broken down material to the cloth? Do we have some sort of liquid that binds the two of them together?"

Finally, Alex began to smash apart the chainmail tunic. Small pieces flew everywhere, one scoring a line just below her eye. She hissed in pain, turning to Tristan. "Do you have goggles of some sort?"

[Tristan Venora]

As Alex informed him that she would have someone else sew the dress Tristan breathed a huge sigh of relief. That meant that he would have to deal with one less problem. Of course his biggest problem remained. He was trying to make a magic dress and playing the part of an alchemist when all he knew about alchemy came from a couple of books that he had hurriedly read in the library. He wasn’t even sure if they had been good books!

“That’s a good idea!” he remarked as she suggested that they try a bit of everything and smile brightly. Cutting the cloth in half doubled his chance of success. Of course, he realized, his chance of failure doubled as well. It would be twice as likely that he blew something up. He abruptly stopped smiling and wondered if there was an Immortal of Explosions. Maybe they would come and help him. Maybe they’d even mark him because he had made such a nice explosion!

“I made it about an arc ago”, he answered as she asked about the sculpture. “As for drugs, no, I’m not on drugs. That’s what I’m normally like. If I were on drugs, it would probably be ten times worse. I tried drugs once because my cousin gave them to me. They made me see a dragon and put on my grandmother’s clothes!”

He remembered that trial quite fondly. He had run away to Sabaissant because he had been stressed out about his new play and needed to forget everything for a while. It had worked. By the time András and he had used all the drugs and drunk all the alcohol he had been so high that he had just passed out on his grandmother’s bed and even forgotten his own name!

“Of course”, he replied and handed her the hammer while he kept the axe. “Destroying things is fun!” His eyes lit up as he said that. He didn’t normally have such a penchant for destruction, but he really needed to vent his frustration on something, and the sculpture was just taking up space anyway.

As she asked him about a binding liquid, he looked completely lost. He had absolutely no idea what he could use for that. The books had mentioned binders, but not what they were made of. What if he just used glue? But that would only be superficial, he realized, and the alchemical stuff needed to be in every part of the dress. “I have several chemicals that we could use for that”, he eventually claimed because he needed to say something. “Including a substance that is, believe it or not, derived from snails!”

Snails produced some sort of sticky, slimy secretion that could quite possibly ensure that the magical dress didn’t fall apart the moment somebody touched it. There were snails in his garden, relentlessly destroying his plants. Maybe he’d kill a few of them. Or maybe there would be something usable in the chemist’s kit that he had bought. He hadn’t taken a closer look at it yet.

“We also need to heat the chainmail fragments and melt them into the cloth”, he continued. “Otherwise it will just be a piece of cloth with chainmail fragments hanging from it which is probably not what you want – although it might look good.” That, he decided, was probably when everything would explode. Melting metal and then dumping chemicals into it sounded at least mildly dangerous. Maybe, he thought, he could just let Alex handle the dangerous stuff while he hid under the table.

“Goggles?” For a moment he stared at her blankly as if she were speaking gibberish, and then he remembered. Goggles. He walked over to the shelf and rooted around until he had found the goggles that he occasionally used when he was making a stone sculpture. He tossed them to her. “I also have this though”, he informed her and produced a chain coif. When he had gone to that shop, they had assumed he was preparing for combat and insisted that he needed something for his head as it was one of the most vulnerable parts of the body.

“It might not protect your face, but it will keep you from getting a concussion because something hit your head!” Having said that, he started to swing the axe and attack the old sculpture in a most violent manner. He briefly considered imagining that it was Padraig, but pretending to murder Padraig didn’t feel quite right (he was dull and uncreative and had stolen Faith, but he didn’t deserve to die), so he decided that it was a shadow beast instead. That was also quite satisfying.

[Vluharqih]

"Something made from snails?" Alex wondered aloud. She wondered if they were regular snails or some odd, specialized, alchemical snails and debated asking him, but decided not to in the end. She would find out soon enough, she was sure.

"Okay, just wanted to give you something to think about. If you haven't yet, I mean," she stammered.

Well done Vlu. What is it with you and insulting the talent of the alchemists you run across? First Padraig and now Tristan- do you honestly think you know better than them?

She smiled at his talk of melting the metal down. "No, that was actually the look I was going for. I wanted to announce my arrival like a windchime and be totally defenseless all at once," she said dryly.

She gratefully took the goggles and fit them over her eyes, smiling at Tristan in gratitude. He offered her a chainmail coif, but she had already turned her back, smashing away at the chainmail on the table. She soon heard the crashing of him attacking his statue and smiled. He attacked it with a vigor she wouldn't have expected from him.

The bits passed quickly as Alex broke the chainmail up into reasonably small pieces, thankful for the goggles as several chunks scored lines across them. That done, she cast her gaze around the room, landing on the firing kiln. She gathered up the pieces of chainmail and stuck them in a nearby bowl, sticking all of it in the already hot oven. Those would take a while to heat up, she assumed, so they would be able to work with the stone powder first.

When at long last Tristan was finished smashing the sculpture, Alex approached him carefully. "T-The chainmail is all done and in the oven. Did you want to start working with the stone powder?"

She was ready to do whatever Tristan needed from her. [/align]

[Tristan Venora]

“In order to start working with the stone powder we need to make stone powder first”, Tristan pointed out. The statue fragments were still much too big to be used on the cloth in his opinion, so he retrieved a mortar and pestle, put a few fragments into it and started grinding. He had never ground stone before, so he was surprised how hard it was and how much of a strain it put on his skinny arms. If he ground all of it alone, he decided, they would probably just fall off, so he handed Alex a mortar and pestle as well and gestured for her to do the same. If they worked together, maybe they’d only loose one arm each.

He was just about to pour the powder he had created into a different container where it would be mixed with the snail slime and a number of random and mildly dangerous chemicals when a boom rang through the room and then another one. He abruptly dropped the mortar and pestle, spun around and stared at the oven wide-eyed. Smoke was coming out of it now, a whole lot of smoke. He coughed, pulled a handkerchief, a nice lacy handkerchief that he had stolen from his grandmother when he had last visited her, out of a pocket, covered his face with it and hurried over to the window to open it.

“By Ilaren!” he exclaimed. He had pretty much expected something to explode, but he hadn’t thought that Alex would cause the explosion. “What have you done? I had no idea that chainmail could explode!” It was just as he said that that something occurred to him. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “Or did you put something else into the bowl as well? Either way, the chainmail fragments are pretty much unusable now. But we still have the stone powder in case you want me to continue.”

He prayed to Ilaren that she would say no, that she would inform him that she had enough, but he had the feeling that she would urge him to continue because she really needed that magic dress. The explosion had been nice, but its destructive potential had been questionable. The chainmail fragments were ruined, but the oven was still intact, and the neighbours weren’t knocking on the door and asking what had happened either.

[Vluharqih]

Alex took the proferred mortar and pestle, grinding quickly and expertly, her gaze wandering. She worked fast, a product of countless hours of practice doing this exact motion. She spared a few glances over at Tristan, suddenly realizing that her expertise might come across as... well not befitting a merchant's daughter to be sure. Subtly, she rubbed at her shoulder as if she had overworked it and switched hands. If she was lucky, he wouldn't think anything of it.

Several trills later, she need not worry. The small explosion that rocked the stove made her snap her gaze over to the stove, her mouth dropping open as she saw the thick, roiling smoke pouring out.

Tristan lept into action, Alex moving forward to open the stove. Inside, blackened remains of the bowl coated the stove, a small pile of something metallic sitting on the bottom in a heap. More smoke poured out when she did, but the window was open and it slowly worked its way outside.

"I-I'm not sure. I just put the chainmail into the bowl that was sitting here," she said, gesturing beside the stove. "Then I put it in." She caught his implication but decided to ignore it. It wasn't worth getting riled up about. "Yeah, that would be best. I'm sorry about that," another wave towards the stove, "but I didn't add anything to it, I promise. It's not like I know enough about this to try anything."

She took in a deep breath and looked at him. "I'm good to keep going if you are."

Alex returned to her mortar, grinding absently and pouring the powder into the container Tristan had pointed out, working until Tristan told her that he had enough.

Sitting back, she watched as Tristan got the remaining supplies and mixed them, asking questions along the way.

"What is that? How does it work?"

She hoped she wasn't being too much of a bother to Tristan, and a thought suddenly occurred to her as he worked his magic-

"I am more than willing to pay for the damage I caused to your stove. I'm not sure what exactly I did, but I'm sure I caused it, and it only seems fair to make up for that."

[Tristan Venora]

Well, I don’t really know enough about this either, Tristan thought. He was honestly surprised that they weren’t both dead yet. If they survived the trial and if he managed to produce something at least halfway functional, he decided, he would go to a temple and make a sacrifice to Chrien and pray to him even though he didn’t normally pray to any Immortals besides Ilaren and Zanik.

For now he needed to decide how to proceed though. She wanted to keep going, and he only had a very vague idea as to what came next. For a moment he actually considered faking an epileptic fit, but then she said that she would pay for the damage she had caused. He realized that he might get a brand new stove as well as a couple of other things out of it if he played his cards right. So he decided to continue his charade.

“I need to harvest a few reagents in my garden”, he claimed and smiled brightly at her. “I grow herbs and such there so that I don’t have to buy them from the store where they are much more expensive. I’ll be back in a bit!” He walked towards the door before he abruptly turned around again and warned her, “Don’t touch anything!”

<><><>

He walked straight to the salad plants that grew in a corner of his garden and moved to gather a couple of common garden snails, but they looked so small that they probably didn’t produce enough slime. Besides, he had no idea how to separate them from their shells. Fortunately there were also a few large, ugly and bright orange slugs there, leaving slimy trails behind on the salad that he wanted to eat one trial. He nearly retched as he picked them up and dumped them into his bowl.

Now he just needed to decide how to get the slime. His initial idea had involved crushing the slugs with a stone or grinding them with a mortar and pestle like the statue fragments, but using the entire slug might have negative effects on the end product, besides it would probably be murder. While he was perfectly fine with sticking his weapon into a shadow beast, he wasn’t sure about killing innocent and disgusting salad murdering parasites.

So he decided to carry the slug-filled bowl inside, proudly put it on the table in front of Alex as if it were a great treasure and then went to retrieve a spatula from the kitchen. He decided to scrape the slime off the slugs and poke them and annoy them with the spatula so that they would hopefully produce even more of the sticky stuff. Unfortunately it wasn’t nearly enough.

He scratched his head again – Alex was probably beginning to think that he had lice – and then he suddenly remembered something from his painting classes at university. They had used various oils as binders. Alchemy, he decided, was a form of art as well, so it might work, and it was far better than admitting that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

“Actually”, he thus claimed and turned to face Alex again. “The binder consists of two ingredients. The slime is the most important one of course, but there is another one that we need to add to ensure that the binder is as effective as possible. I’m afraid that I can’t tell you what it is though. Every alchemist has his secrets, you know?”

He grinned at her. He knew better than to tell her what he had in mind.

“Could you please harvest some more slime for me while I get the other ingredients?” he asked her. Without waiting for her answer, he disappeared into the kitchen where he poured a bit of oil into a bowl and stirred. Once he was done, he returned to Alex and announced, “Now we just need to mix everything – the binder ingredients and the stone powder – together, heat it and let the cloth soak for a while.”

“I think we should go into the kitchen for that”, he realized as he looked at his ruined stove. “Would you do me the honor of starting the fire and adding the cloth to the mixture?” he asked. If something went wrong, he thought, he would be able to blame it all on her because she had been the one to handle the cloth. He wasn’t normally so mean, but desperate times required desperate measures – if that was really how the saying went.