• Closed • Alchemy with Tristan and ... Padraig?!

[Tristan Venora]

Ymiden 26, Arc 718

Tristan held the porcelain bowl close to his chest as he approached the university building, worried that it might break and that its occupants might get hurt, Brandon, one of his bodyguards in tow. The brown-haired young man had once been a burglar, but now he worked for the people whose houses he had broken into, and he was one of Tristan’s closest friends. “I didn’t think I would ever study at a university!” he remarked and grinned. “This is great! I can’t wait to show Padraig my fancy Letter! Coming to Scalvoris was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my entire life!”

For the past couple of seasons Tristan’s mood had varied between sadness and utter despair because his friend, King Cassander, had turned out not to be such a nice person, because his cousin Pythera was still at large and because his subjects still didn’t like him particularly. Now he felt free again, as free as he had been when he had only been the son of a baron and nobody had been particularly interested in him. In Rynmere, he had worn nothing but black for at least two seasons in order to silently protest against Cassander’s anti-magic law, but now he had a sky-blue shirt that matched his eyes on. In Scalvoris there was no need for him to protest against the anti-magic law – because mages were free here.

“Maybe I should just ask them if I can take an exam”, he mused as he entered the building. “And start with a Certificate rather than a Letter. I can’t wait to see the look on Padraig’s face when he realizes that I’m just as good as him now. I wonder who my tutor will be though”, he murmured as they walked down a hallway. He had asked about the possibility of private lessons, and the Institute of Metaphysics had let him know that the professor had taken a leave of absence, so they’d find a substitute for him. He hoped that the substitute was a pretty woman and not a grumpy old guy.

“Ah, here’s the laboratory”, he said and opened a door. “Want to come in?” he asked Brandon. “You can watch!” Brandon shook his head and pointed at a wooden bench down the hallway. “I’ll just wait over there. No offense, Tristan.” While he really liked Tristan, he was a little afraid of his alchemy. It was a dangerous science, and he’d rather not explode or come in contact with a dangerous substance that would mutate him. Tristan looked at him, shrugged his shoulders and walked in. As he took a look around, his eyes widened.

This was much better than his makeshift laboratory in Oakleigh! He could barely resist the urge to touch all those tools and open the various containers that stood on the shelves. Alchemy, he decided, was great! He’d originally started learning it in order to spite Padraig, but now he loved it. He’d even begun to invent his own reagents, one of which was in the bowl that he had placed on an empty table. There was a white cloth covering it because he didn’t want to immediately reveal just what his invention consisted of.

If only his tutor would hurry up! He couldn’t wait to get started!

[Padraig]

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Padraig Augustin was not a professor of alchemy. He'd been offered the position when he'd first signed on to teach at the university, but he'd turned it down. He had his reasons. Firstly, physics was his main area of interest. Astrophysics in particular. But as importantly, in his opinion too many hopeful alchemists had it in their heads that they could realistically leap from nothing to something, without first attaining the actual knowledge that would get them there. A skilled alchemist must begin with a working knowledge of chemistry and mathematics. It ought to be required before progressing to alchemy. But because it wasn't? Letter level alchemy classes were often noisy ones, and dangerous ones. Things tended to blow up and it wasn't surprising.

Physics was different. One still ought to be required to have mastered mathematics. But if you didn't, it only meant that the rest was near to impossible to comprehend. But the chances of blowing up the universe as a result of ignorance, were slim to none. Nonetheless, when Padraig was asked to fill in for another professor who was taking a leave of absence, he'd gladly agreed. The same had been done for him, after all. So had a trial full of private sessions in front of him, which Padraig preferred over standing in front of a class full.

Problem was, he hadn't been left a list of names, only the time, the place and a note of the student's prospective level. No matter though. That's what introductions were for. He'd left his own office in plenty of time to meet his student, and he thought nothing of the man he passed by in the hall, but only gave him a nod of recognition. It wasn't unusual to see students or prospects in the halls, resting between classes or waiting for a consultation appointment.

He carried his satchel with him, and barely looked up until he'd passed through the open door into the alchemy lab. The place had only recently been put to rights again after a noisy and stinking mishap due to a letter prospects heightened sense of competency. What he didn't expect when he finally glanced up, was to see Tristan Venora waiting there. A mask of confusion evolved into narrowed eyes almost immediately. "Tristan," he said, dryly, with only a semblance of politeness for after all, he was thought to be quite professional. "Fancy meeting you here. Waiting for someone?" The hope of course was that this was not his student, but the man had simply got turned around while at the university for other business.

[Tristan Venora]

Tristan had never been good at sitting around idly and waiting patiently. So, when his tutor – who he had begun to picture as a redhead with big green eyes and curves in all the right places – didn’t arrive after a couple of bits, he opened his bag, grabbed his notebook and started to write in order to pass the time. He had just come up with an idea for his next project. He had decided to combine sculpting and alchemy. He would … he would melt a bit of metal, mix it with mirror dust and cover his sculpture with the resulting substance in order to make a sculpture that reflected its surroundings as well as nearly blended in with them. He didn’t think that anybody had ever made something like that before!

He was so engrossed in this idea that he didn’t notice that the door was being opened at first. He only looked up as he heard the sound of footsteps coming closer. He quickly put his notebook away and turned his head expectantly, smiling – only to just stare at the newcomer incredulously a moment later. The person that had just entered the laboratory was no cute redhead. It wasn’t the grumpy old guy that he had been worried would tutor him either. It was somebody much, much worse. It was Padraig! Padraig, the terrible tutor, who had married his beloved Faith and taken her away from him!

What was he doing here?

“Padraig”, he said coolly. He had promised Faith that he would behave because she loved the man for some reason, but he hadn’t promised her that he would treat him like an old friend. He could accept that Faith had fallen in love with somebody else, to some extent – he found himself rapidly falling in love with somebody else as well - but Padraig had insulted his art on top of it. He remembered the trial they had met for tea. He was one of the greatest artists in all of Idalos, but Padraig had looked at what had been his newest sculpture at the time as if it were a pile of garbage!

“I’m waiting for my tutor. I’ve decided to take a few courses in alchemy while I’m visiting Scalvoris – although I’m already pretty good now.” That was not a lie. Tristan was as close as one could possibly get to being a master alchemist, although it was of course up for debate whether Padraig would believe him. “And what are you doing here? Did you happen to enter the wrong laboratory?” he asked hopefully before something truly terrible dawned on him.

“You are not my tutor, are you?”

[Padraig]

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Padraig, Tristan said in such a tone of voice, that he might have been a diner at the finest eatery in the land, and had just spotted a fly doing a backstroke in his soup. The sentiment was one that the scholar could relate to, as he looked back at the man. Why was he here? Was there nothing or no place that was sacred? And yet, there was something comforting, even reassuring about the fact that Tristan clearly disliked him, for as much as the sentiment was true in reverse. It was the way the universe worked. One might even whittle the concept down to a pair of magnets.

Opposites attracted, likes repelled. They, the two of them, had one very important thing in common. Their distaste for each other. The sense of being repelled by one another. This meant that the universe was in fact as it should be, as predictable in ways as it had always been. This was good thing and as a scientist, Padraig could appreciate that. Of course in Padraig's mind he had much more legitimate reason for not liking Tristan. The man had apparently thought that a pallet on the floor of a closet was an appropriate place for a human being, that he had owned, to live. And on top of it, Padraig had never forgotten that abomination of a sculpture that the man had been so proud of.

"Well then," he uttered as he put his satchel down on top of one of the worktables. "It's good to see you then." They both knew he was lying, and that was alright. For Faith's sake, Padraig would smile, he'd be polite, he'd be the soul of good behavior. Liking it wasn't required and he silently cursed his fellow professor for not giving him a heads' up in advance. "I am in fact your tutor," he said, as it came of somewhat of a surprise that Tristan was interested in alchemy. Or maybe not. He hardly knew the man well enough to say.

"I teach here at the university. Physics," he added. "However, for this trial, it's alchemy. So you're good at alchemy are you?" But no formal learning apparently. "Self taught?" Immortals help them all if that was the case. What Idalos didn't need was Tristan Venora on the loose with just enough knowledge of alchemy to be considered a menace to society. "or have you learned from a learned alchemist already?" His own knowledge of alchemy after all, had not been gained in a university setting. "Any other formal learning? Mathematics? Chemistry?"

Both of the disciplines after all were critical to becoming an alchemist of any real, reliable skill. Without it? Well the risk of blowing oneself or others to bits inadvertently, rose exponentially. "If you don't believe you're starting from scratch then, perhaps its better for you to tell me what you've done so far," he suggested. In a lab or similar setting, he meant.

[Tristan Venora]

“You are kidding, right?“ Tristan asked as Padraig confirmed that he was in fact his tutor even though he was aware that the chance of the alchemist making a joke in his presence was so miniscule that it might very well be non-existent. He wondered what he had done to deserve this. Was Aelig behind this? Or was he being punished for the fact that he had made Faith sleep in his empty storage closet and made her get a slave brand – even though he regretted that now? For a moment he was tempted to just walk out and demand that they give him a different tutor, but no, he didn’t want to give Padraig that satisfaction. He’d stay, and he’d learn, and he’d do what he could to impress Padraig – because Padraig would absolutely hate to see him succeed at anything!

“Self-taught”, he confirmed and smiled brightly, as if he were completely unaware of what Padraig was likely secretly thinking. “I bought a few books, outfitted a laboratory and started to experiment because I found alchemy incredibly fascinating and wanted to learn more. There aren’t really a lot of skilled alchemists in Oakleigh. In fact, I’d wager that I’m the best alchemist in the entire Eastern Settlement right now”, he continued which was, again, very likely to be true, took a seat in a very casual fashion and confidently met the other man’s gaze. He knew what Padraig was trying to do, he was trying to find flaws in his scientific background, he was trying to find something that he would be able to criticize – but he wouldn’t let him.

“Of course”, he confirmed. “I can count, I know how to calculate things like weight and volume, and I know what acids and bases are and all that stuff. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m afraid that I know that some knowledge of mathematics and chemistry is necessary if you don’t want to fail or accidentally blow yourself up”, he informed him. He had matured considerably since those trials in Andaris and changed his mind about a number of things, such as slavery, but somehow this situation here brought out the worst in him. In fact, he was about to make a scathing remark when Faith’s face suddenly appeared in front of his inner eye, and he decided to tone it down somewhat after all because he didn’t want her to be mad at him.

“I even have some experience in gardening and herbalism”, he pointed out before he proceeded to list his alchemical accomplishments. “Let’s see”, he mused. “I made a garment that was as hard as chainmail for Alex – it was the first item I ever made, and it worked perfectly. I made a chameleon cloak that lets you blend in with your surroundings, I made an anti-seasickness potion – oh, and I travelled to the Misty Miasma where I learned to make a potion that allows you to talk to cats.”

“On top of that I’ve started to come up with my own reagents”, he continued, abruptly reached into his pack and removed a number of small glass containers that were filled with dried flowers, leaves, bark fragments and such and finally removed the cloth from his bowl – only to reveal that it was filled with fat, orange slugs that were munching on a head of lettuce. “I didn’t see why I should use the same, expensive reagents as every other alchemist out there. Alchemy isn’t meant to be static in my opinion. It’s about experimenting and testing the limits and being creative. I discovered that slime is a near perfect and easily renewable binder”, he spoke, almost daring Padraig to make a derogatory comment because he used ordinary slugs instead of exotic substances from the other side of Idalos that were incredibly dangerous to harvest.

What he didn’t tell Padraig of course was that finding out which of the things in his garden could be used for alchemy had involved a lot of trial and error and his kitchen nearly exploding (in the beginning, he had practiced alchemy in his kitchen rather than a lab).

[Padraig]

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Frankly, Padraig wouldn't be at all surprised, was Aelig behind all of this. The Immortal had seemed to have it in for Faith and himself once before. Whatever the source of the grudge, it seemed unlikely that all was forgotten. Either way, he inwardly shrugged and responded dryly, with a drawl, "Suffice to say, I wish I was." Kidding, he meant, and on that, he and Tristan could probably agree. But here, in these halls of learning? He was a professional and was determined to behave like one. And besides. For Faith, anything.

So. Tristan was self taught. And since Padriag had vowed to behave in a polite, professional manner, he nodded and found himself a stool by a workbench to sit on. "My own certifications are in physics. All of them," he said. "And my field of focus is astrophysics. I began learning alchemy when I was a very young boy, from an old man who lived nearby my grandfather's shoe making shop. No formal learning myself in alchemy," he revealed. The same, in truth, where mathematics and chemistry were concerned.

He resisted, when Tristan mentioned he might be the best alchemist in the eastern settlement, to worry aloud that the place must be one whim away from being blown sky high and to bits, if that was the best could be said for the region. Padraig was rather proud of himself for suppressing that urge. "That's good," he said then when Tristan as good as assured him that he'd gone beyond the sort of mishaps that destroyed labs or even cities. "We've just put this lab back together for the second time, due to a student that believed himself more skilled than he was." By a long shot.

It sounded as if some of Tristan's creations were similar to a couple of his own, though why it was that anyone would want to talk to cats was beyond him. He still remembered Tristan's cat. The thing was something that must have emerged from a portal to the darkest of underworlds. Many of the things in jars that Tristan showed him were neither surprising or in the scheme of things, out of the ordinary. Except for the slugs. "Now that's different," he said curiously and peered into the bowl for a better look.

"You're ahead of a number of alchemists, who, while practicing a craft which is in itself a bit of a maverick science, still tend to think inside the lines and rarely stray outside them. It's lazy," he declared, coming as close as he would to complimenting Tristan on thinking beyond the obvious. "I think as well that many alchemists over complicate, when in truth, sometimes the simplest answer is the best one. Chameleon, for changes in color. Simple. Glands from frogs and gold fish to enable the body to go into something of a dormant state in the most deadly, frozen conditions."

In case that last bit was unclear, he explained that both frogs and goldfish, in water, would go dormant in the coldest water, or even freeze in solid ice, while their vital organs continued keeping them alive. When spring came round again, they'd thaw out and come back to life. At any rate..."I assume that you're here then so that you can earn a letter? Or are you here to learn more than you already know?" If it was the former, with the amount of knowledge Tristan seemed to have, they'd only be going backwards was Padraig to instruct him as he would a beginner.

"We might start with a project first...First you tell me how you'd go about it, then you do it," he suggested. "What about a portable lantern...Like something contained within a jar or glass globe mounted on a staff or the like. Something that would only begin to glow automatically, once you're surroundings have grown dark, without you needing to trigger it somehow. Once exposed to light, it ceases glowing."

[Tristan Venora]

Padraig didn’t have any formal learning in alchemy either? Tristan just stared at the terrible tutor as he heard that because he had been absolutely sure that the man had several degrees in alchemy in addition to physics and astrophysics and all that other stuff - and had acquired at least half of them before he had even entered puberty. That they might actually have a somewhat similar background when it came to this particular science made him feel strange. To think that he had something in common with the man who had taken the woman he had loved more than anything else in the world away …

“Oh?” he asked as he mentioned them having to put the lab back together – for the second time. He was, he had to admit, quite curious. He wanted to meet that student. He sounded really interesting! “Who was that student? Is he still alive?” he wanted to know because that was not absolutely certain, as far as he was concerned.

“Are you sure you are Padraig and not just his doppelganger?” he asked doubtfully as the man just peered into his slug bowl rather than recoiling in disgust and demanding that he put it away right now. “I have several doppelgangers”, he pointed out. One of them was Hart who was currently impersonating him and ruling his duchy, and another one was Aelig who had visited Faith disguised as him one trial. He loved the first doppelganger, and he wanted the second doppelganger to be gone. Aelig had nearly ruined Faith’s and his life!

When Padraig complimented him – or as good as complimented him, at least – Tristan found his suspicion that he was currently facing Padraig’s doppelganger confirmed. There was no way that the real Padraig would ever be so nice to him … or was there? The mere thought made his head spin a little. When they had last met, the only reason they hadn’t ended up fighting had probably been Faith. Neither of them had wanted to hurt her.

He didn’t find frog glands and gold fish simple, to be honest, but he just nodded because he didn’t want to give Padraig any reason to criticize him and tried to commit the information he had been given to memory. Once he had left the laboratory, he decided, he would go and catch a few frogs in order to use them for alchemy and make a magical cloak that would allow him to walk around outside in the middle of winter without freezing to death!

And then he’d show it to Padraig, and he would be incredibly impressed!

“Both”, he replied as Padraig asked him why he was here. “I want to learn more, and I want the Letter so that nobody will be able to deny I’m a good alchemist, and then I went all the other degrees!” he added because you could never have enough of those in his opinion, and a few degrees in alchemy would go well with his current titles.

Padraig probably thought his question was difficult, but Tristan only smiled as he asked him how he would go about making a portable lantern and replied, “That’s easy. I’d just get a bunch of phosphorescent crystals – because they last longer than fluorescent crystals. Phosphorescence is when things glow in the dark”, he replied confidently although he wasn’t completely sure because he was still something of a novice when it came to chemistry. He wouldn’t let Padraig know that he was insecure though!

Tristan Venora was never insecure!

“Of course, you could also use animals that glow in the dark for the lantern”, he added because he wanted to impress the terrible tutor with his vast knowledge in the fields of chemistry and biology. “You'd probably have to kill them first though.”

[Padraig]

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Which one?" Padraig quipped dryly when Tristan asked the name of the student who'd ruined the lab, several times over. "There's been a couple in the last arc, and so long as the university continues to teach alchemy and chemistry...or engineering for that matter, there will continue to be more." The cost of learning? More like the cost of teaching, so far as the scholar was concerned.

Meanwhile Tristan was looking at him as if he'd sprouted a horn from the middle of his forehead. It had occurred to him too, that they might have more in common than Faith, though no one would hear Padraig say it out loud. But added to that, when it came to teaching, so long as he was willing to continue doing it, professionalism was paramount. The slugs were interesting, their creation clever. He wouldn't apply anything else....Dammit. "Dopplegangers?" he asked, somewhat skeptical, but then he suppressed the grin that tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I guess for you then, meeting yourself coming and going isn't just a pithy old saying."

"There are a lot of degrees you can earn Tristan," he said then, wondering if the man was reaching a little farther than was reasonable. Then again, as a scientist, he understood the concept and necessity of pushing boundaries and reaching farther than was realistic. Then of course, Tristan was quicker than he'd expected, rising to the challenge Padraig had handed out. Frowning, he thought about it a trill as he propped himself on the edge of a workbench.

"Perhaps we've started out at too easy a level for you," he considered. "I'm not sure if you're aware Tristan, that here at the University you are able to take a test from the outset that will allow you to earn your letter and head straight to the next level. Your knowledge is such that it exceeds a letter level student by quite a bit. I'll tell you what. I'll give you a new challenge, you show me what you can do with it, either on paper or you can actually do it here in the lab," he explained. "And if you are able to impress me? Then I'll sign off on a form, with my own recommendation, that you can present to the dean for your letter."

Everything that Tristan could possibly need was in that lab. Equipment of course, raw materials including cloth and metal plate and so on, even a cabinet that contained a select variety of reagents in raw form. Stones that had been collected from areas where mages had done their work. Preserved lizards, bugs, birds, furry animals and so on. Mirror glass, the list went on and on. None of the items were incredibly rare or expensive, but there was a good variety nonetheless. "Go on then," he said. "Have a look, let your imagination run wild, impress me and I'll sign off on your fast track to a letter in alchemy."

[Tristan Venora]

“No, I wasn’t aware that I could just take a test”, Tristan admitted, furrowing his brow slightly as he wondered why nobody had told him that when he had signed up for his course. If he had gone from a Letter to whatever the second or third (or fourth) level was within a break, Padraig would have been even more impressed. The terrible tutor seemed to be quite willing to give him a chance to get a Letter now though which surprised him to say the least. He hadn’t thought that Padraig would ever do anything nice for him. He began to question if he was the real Padraig again and resisted the urge to poke him in order to see if he was just a figment of his imagination after all.

He stopped thinking about the hallucinations that he was possibly suffering from and the terrible tutor’s unexpected and not entirely welcome change of heart (he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to deal with a nice Padraig that he might even have liked if it weren’t for Faith) the moment the man directed him to the materials though. He didn’t even need to think about what he wanted to make. He already had an idea – a most excellent idea. He grabbed a wooden box that contained some sort of dried herbs, upended it and emptied it before he scrubbed it with a wet rag and a brush in order to make sure that it was completely clean. He didn’t want his imbuement to be contaminated by left-over herbs.

“The books I read always said that the reagents have to be added at the creation stage”, he informed Padraig. “And added to the raw material rather than the finished product lest there are gaps in the effect. Well, that’s not true. I found a way to apply a magical effect to the finished product. Watch me!” he told Padraig. Having said that, he grabbed a container with mirror dust and emptied it into a metal bowl. Following that, he harvested a bit of slime from his snails, dumped it into the bowl as well, added water and a few chemicals and heated the resulting mixture up on a burner in order to get the mirror dust to melt, occasionally stirring it with a spatula.

“I’m an artist first and foremost. I regularly paint my sculptures. One trial I asked myself, why not just make some kind of paint out of the reagents in order to apply them more easily? It doesn’t work for everything”, he conceded as he removed the bowl from the burner and dumped the box into it. “I would still make a weapon or a piece of armor the usual way so that the effect is in every part of the item – and it would probably be rather expensive for larger items - but for small things like these my technique is absolutely perfect in my opinion. I want to make a box that reflects its surroundings and thus becomes as good as invisible”, he explained. “Such a thing would be rather useful when it comes to protecting your money against thieves, don’t you think?” he asked and harvested more snail slime.

“As I explained before, snail slime is a perfect binder. We need to use a binder so that the different reagents don’t negate each other. For the effect to be instantaneous we also need an accelerator”, he said and poured some sort of milky-white liquid into his bowl. “And we’ll need a triggering reagent so that the effect can be turned on and off”, he continued and poured another liquid into the bowl. While he let his box soak in the mixture he grabbed a small metal plate and treated it with the same triggering reagent. “This will serve as our trigger. The mirror-effect can be turned on and off by simply holding the metal plate against the box”, he explained. “Of course, if you want something more complicated, I can also make the box fire-proof. I’ve heard of a lizard that lives in Northern Idalos and that produces some sort of substance that can be used as a fire-proof coating.”

“Do you want me to make another box that combines both effects?” he asked as he grabbed a pair of tongs and removed the box from the bowl that contained the alchemical mixture. The tone of his voice would make it obvious to Padraig that he was definitely up for the challenge. “I can also add some phosphorescent paint to the box so that it looks pretty even without the mirror effect turned on”, he offered.

[Padraig]

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Tristan could be easily forgiven for not realizing there was a test he could have taken in order to make quicker work of a letter earned. Not that forgiveness was required for that sort of thing. "It's not posted anywhere or openly offered. It's more of an ask and you might receive sort of thing," Padraig explained. After all, enrollments and long term attendees brought the university more nels than did testing that expedited the process by quite a lot. It just didn't seem to make good business sense to advertise that sort of thing. Then again, the question was too close to politics and politics weren't at all within his realm of interest.

"I tend to think it's better to attend the classes or tutoring sessions anyway. You can learn the basics from any book on the shelf. But there isn't a book out there than can provide the same sort of face to face experience and the valuable exchanging of ideas that the classroom can." By this point, Padraig had opted to try viewing Tristan as any other student he might mentor on any given trial, and stop focusing on exactly who that student was. He was only marginally successful. It was just damned unsettling, this entire situation. As if the cosmos itself had wobbled over onto its side and had upset the order of things completely.

Watch him? The scholar frowned and quirked a brow, but said nothing as he looked on. "You're, in effect, using the slime as a binder for the mirror dust, yes?" That was simplifying it certain, but they both knew what he meant. "Its ingenious, Tristan," he said almost begrudgingly. "It's thinking beyond the expected boundaries which in effect is what science is about. Including alchemy. You have to remember as well that the texts that are currently available are arcs old by now. But science is constantly changing, expanding, pushing beyond those boundaries. I would not completely rely on a book to tell you what can or can't be done."

The additional box that Tristan proposed sounded intriguing. And besides, if he was to sign off on the awarding of a letter, a document that would go straight to the dean, he'd need to make sure that the student himself had actually earned it. "Proceed then," he said, regarding the dual purposes Tristan had suggested. As for making it pretty? Well, Padraig was much more interested in function than looks, but whether it was pretty or not, was up to Tristan.