Deals With Demons

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*EM Lyrium
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *EM Lyrium »


-- Brindas, Krystelle & Trissa --
The House of Healing, Sigil.


It's likely that Brindas has no idea what 'Acetone' is, the name of the formula unfamiliar to him. The woman's description of it's abilities, however, are perhaps something that can be achieved through alchemy. That being said, the doctor has already attempted to blot what ink he can from the yellowed parchment thus leaving the newer ink damp but slightly smeared and steadily drying.

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[[ EM Note: Please RP and include a CRAFT ALCHEMY role if you intend to replicate a chemical similar to Acetone.
No rolls needed if intended to purchase or collect from somewhere else. ]]
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*Brindas
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *Brindas »


Brindas would certainly show her the kitchen, though he would busy himself with pondering how what information he had could be used.
*EM Lyrium
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *EM Lyrium »


-- Miranda --
Luizlurgh, Preularith.


The Ridgeways both seem to relax simultaneously, news of the the fiend's removal easing the slight rigidness to their shoulders with accompanied exhales of quiet relief. As Ann moves to stand and refill the table's beverages, her chair scraping mildly on the wooden floor, Jareth likewise dips his head in apology. "Forgive us, your grace. Aside from the notion of a demon being among us, a troubling one in itself, you will perhaps further understand our relief once you hear the tale of what has befallen us."

Pausing to sip from his recently filled glass, the man offers a thankful smile across the table to his wife as she seats herself once more. For a brief moment, Jareth swirls the liquid around behind his lips to savor it's taste. Evidently, it was not often that they were able to partake of such a well-laid table.

"It all began a few weeks ago, as far as we know. The Lord's son, Master Bonvalet, he's. . . he was a delightful lad. Always willing to lend a hand, eyes wide with the enthusiasm of youth." The man shakes his head with a pained expression. For a moment his brow furrows, as if contemplating his words. "My wife and I are unable to sire children, you see. William had a special place in our hearts. In the hearts of many."

His grey eyes weave across the table once more, callused hand returning the glass to the table to take up his wife's hand once again. Meal all but forgotten, knife and fork askew on their plates, he continues. "The boy started asking all these questions, you know how children are. So curious when it comes to outlandish tales and things they pick up from travelers. Then one day, he just disappeared. . . stopped coming by the Inn. At first we assumed that he had simply began studying again, the Lord and Lady always hired the finest tutors after all."

Jareth billowed a quiet sigh, shaking his head. In a softer tone, Ann takes up the tale where her husband left off with a small squeeze of their joined hands. "Master Bonvalet returned a few days later, or so it is said, and that's when the . . . corpses started to rise from the earth. It started with one or two, shuffling and decayed. . . it was horrifying. I've never seen anything like it before. Nobody thought much of it until the town had become overridden. Everyone barricaded themselves within their homes, or those that could."

Her voice catches in her throat with a timorous expression, fingers idly tugging at the frayed hem of her sleeve. "Some adventurers came, dressed in bright colours. They were very strong, many of us saw them dispatch the walking dead whom crossed their paths but. . . but they didn't stop. They didn't help. . . many of our friends died in their homes that night. I cannot bring myself to be angry at them, people like that often have no time for people like us. Others, however, became resentful. Understandably so."

"They say that the rise of corpses was done by a beautiful demon called a "Succubus", that a fiend killed Master Bonvalet." Jareth chimes in with a gravelly tone, vexation evident. "The adventurer's went to the manor, attempting to save the boy and. . . and they failed. I do not know what happened within those walls. . . only that our Lord lay down a decree in the days that followed naming all adventurers to pass through our town as outlaws, magnets of death and destruction."

"Jareth. . ." wafts the gentle tone of the woman across the table, the mournful expression in her voice enough to ease the broad shouldered man's inclination. He clears his throat, head bowing slightly as he expresses his apology to their foreign guest. "Forgive me, M'Lady."
*WhenWizardsWar
Posts: 353
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *WhenWizardsWar »


-Miranda-

Miranda frowned mentally as she listened to the couple tell the story of the towns plights. She had heard snippets of the matter here and there as she had gone about her life in Sigil but it was nice to hear the story from what she was sure, were truthful lips. She still found the story and implications troublesome as the story, as it was told to her began to cast a suspicious light on lady Scarlet. She really didn't want to believe for a moment that Scarlet was the raiser of the dead and a slayer of children, not the cleric of Sune she had come to know as they both conducted business on any given day within Sigils confines. The lady Scarlet had spent many many many hours keeping Miranda company within the radius of the thayans stall as business was conducted, hell some cycles Scarlet had been ninety percent of her business.

Still, Miranda pondered...

Did she really, really know Scarlet as well as she thought?

Had she just saved an innocent tannari soul from obliteration?

Or had she just rescued a fiend from a fate it actually deserved at the hands of a blood thirsty mob?

Miranda has often spoken a saying to those she has met when talking about her origins, and it really is a universal metaphor.

"You can take the Red Wizard out of Thay but you cant take Thay out of the Red Wizard".

"You can take the demon out of the abyss, but you cant take the abyss out of the demon".

She allowed herself a mental frown while she gently sipped her drink before looking back at the couple.

"Please, continue".
*LadyLightning
Posts: 157
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *LadyLightning »



When Krystelle is shown to the kitchen, she immediately sets aside the vinegar
and the eggs. With a quick moment to read from a scroll of Greater Heroism,
the lavender woman first sets about cracking every egg Brindas has, removing
the yolks and the whites into the garbage bin, and setting aside the shells. Then
she begins to wash and scrape the membranes off of the inside of the eggshells,
before crushing them in her mortar and pestle, and placing the resulting powder
within a flask. Then, something occurs to her.


"Chalk. Of course. Almost pure calcium..."

Then she produces a few pieces of white drawing chalk from a little belt pouch,
and sets them aside to be added later.

That being prepared, an entire staff would follow the chalk out of the tiny pouch,
and Krystelle would set the bottle of vinegar aside on the counter. She removes
the stopper and places an alchemical thermometer within the liquid -- currently
reading the room temperature, but capable of showing negative temperatures in
celsius. Then Krystelle would point the head of the staff toward the bottle, and
with a constant chanting of the command phrase 'infrigis elementis,' a small ray
of ice would strike the vinegar bottle as the cantrip 'Ray of Frost,' gradually
causing the thermometer within the vinegar to display the drop in temperature.

After a few minutes, when the temperature reads -4 celsius, Krystelle would stop
freezing, place the point of her adamant stiletto atop the ice, and drive a hole in
it alongside the thermometer. Then she would remove the stiletto, set it aside,
and pour from the bottle a pungent, acidic liquid into her flask with the crushed
eggshells, leaving behind a bottle of mostly semi-frozen icy slush. The liquid
poured into the flask, then, is a more highly concentrated solution of acetic acid,
vinegar's active ingredient. This higher concentration rapidly dissolves the fine,
powdered eggshells within the flask in a foaming, bubbling reaction! As the foam
dies down, Krystelle begins to crush the chalk pieces with pestle in hand, adding
portions of chalk to the mixture a little bit at a time, carefully measured against
the eggshells already present, and the amount of freeze-distilled acetic acid that
the bottle of vinegar produced. She would then preheat the stove to its highest
available temperature, and move the thermometer to the surface of the stove,
just beside the burner, so she could monitor said temperature.

A couple hours after all is said and done, the bottom of the flask would be home
to a number of clear, needle-shaped crystals, each about the size of Krystelle's
index finger. These she would fish out with a long pair of calipers from her set of
thieves' tools and dry them off on a rag, before placing them into the bottom of
her alembic -- a two-flasked apparatus, connected at the neck by a glass tube
with a bulbous section for condensation, that contains a filter that can be slid out
and replaced. She would produce a replacement filter from her belt pouch, set it
aside, and place the alembic atop the stove's burner.

The crystals within would slowly begin to decompose into a gas, which collects
in the bulbous condensation area of the alembic tube, and runs in liquid form to
the receptacle flask. The filter needs to be replaced and cleaned periodically,
gunked up by an oily black tar -- the byproducts of the reaction. After about an
hour, after all is said and done, the receptacle flask is full of a clear liquid which
smells like any number of solvents, especially those used in cosmetics for the
removal of nail polish, or in art for the thinning and removal of paint from the
canvas. There isn't much there, but then again, they don't need a whole lot --
just enough to fill a shallow tray the width and length of the pages.


~~Intended End Result~~
*EM Lyrium
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *EM Lyrium »


-- Miranda --
Luizlurgh, Preularith.


"The Lord and Lady have not left the manor since they buried their son." Ann continues quietly, nodding to Miranda's request. Her grey-blue eyes slowly drift toward the ajar window, a crease furrowing her brows as she speaks. "A ceremony was held outside the town for the lost, our cemetery has expanded in almost double the size. Perhaps more." Slowly her gaze swings back to Miranda, whom she offers a sad smile with the corners of her lips.

"Since then, our friends and neighbors have banded together to help rebuild the town in the aftermath of destruction. Both physically and metaphorically. Tents of healing were set up to treat disease brought on by the plague. Others lost limbs. . . it has not been an easy task, as I'm sure you can imagine." adds Jareth, nodding slowly as he lifts a hand and gestures toward the patchwork boards placed over various holes in the wall. "As if the grief of losing loved ones was not enough, many homes were destroyed by the rotting horde. Thankfully, our own was relatively undisturbed."

Pausing to skewer a piece of meat on his previously discarded fork, he occupies himself with the task as his wife once again continues the conversation fluidly. "There was an elven maiden among us whom we did not recognize. Our community is very close, you see. We could not place her face nor her . . . abilities. At the time, we thought nothing of it. In fact, many were grateful for her aid. Others, however, were convinced it was some kind of witchcraft. Whatever powers they were, M'Lady, we are not used to such here and it puts a chill in my bones, it does."

"Then she started making promises of bringing the dead back to live." Jareth chimes in with a mouthful of beef, quickly turning away and covering his mouth as he remembers they have company. A briefly amused, if not a little embarrassed, smile passes over Ann's features as she nods and continues. "Quite. It was enough to send people reeling back in fear. Those desperate enough approached, asking for her blessing. . . and it actually worked, M'Lady. At least for one of them. I saw it with my own two eyes - Simon's limbs twitched and he started breathing!"

Ann quickly shakes her head, as if she can scarcely believe it herself. "That's got to be some kind of dark magic, doesn't it? P-People don't just come back to life." The woman pauses, taking a quick nip from her glass to calm herself. "Poor Simon though, he hasn't been right after that. He started making claims, accusations against this elven woman. . . saying he knew what she was - a Succubus. That he had seen it in the beyond. I didn't believe it myself at first, but it caught on fast. People started saying she was some kind of witch, others said she was the demon that had slain dear William. . . it wasn't until Beatrix, one of our staff, came to me trembling in fear I knew what she really was. . ."

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-- Krystelle --
The House of Healing, Sigil.


Step by step, Krystelle carefully works through the process of formulating the strange concoction she had described. Patiently she toils through the next hour or two, her calculations and technique combined with her prior knowledge of the procedure soon showing positive results. At the completion of her alchemic precept, she finds herself with a half-flask of poignant smelling chemical. Success.

Meanwhile, Brindas ponders and Trissa wanders.

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[[ EM Note: Just a courtesy for players, replies may come a bit slower over the next few days as I have a major assignment due.
My apologies for an inconveniences, but rest assured I will respond as soon as I am able. ]]
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*LadyLightning
Posts: 157
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *LadyLightning »


For another alchemist, the successful formulation of a specific chemical from mundane household items may be a cause for feeling pride in one's mental acumen. Perhaps a little fear that people less qualified are living with the ingredients every day, depending on the substance in question. For Krystelle, however, the success is devoid of feeling. It is only to be expected of her that she set right her failure, and though the intended process is wholly reliant on circumstance and may not even work, this is the only thing she can think of to alleviate that nagging little thought in the back of her subconscious, that she has transgressed against her conditioning.

Quickly, Krystelle recalls the estimated width and height of the pages, adds an inch in each direction, and selects a baking sheet from Brindas' cupboard. She sets the flask, half-filled with her acetone, on the counter beside it, and begins to drift through the halls in search of the Doctor.


"...Doctor Brindas!" she calls, her equivalent of shouting roughly equal in volume to a typical speaking voice. Should she discover the Doctor, she would speak the following information. "...The acetone is complete. I have prepared a shallow tray for this next part of our process. I will await your leisure in the kitchen. Please bring the pages, once you are finished perusing what remains legible."

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(( ....Just gonna use the built-in margins from now on, lels. Getting tiring trying to arrange them myself. Also, no worries Lyri! Take your time, do your thing, take care of you first! We're better at waiting than your teacher is! ))
*WhenWizardsWar
Posts: 353
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *WhenWizardsWar »


-Miranda-

She sighed as he finished speaking. She was placing this couple in danger simply by being here, if the lord of this place found out they were caring for an outsider...

She frowned as she took another sip of her non-alcoholic beverage. She saw potential in this city and its people, that was one of her gifts...to see potential where others didnt, but now she knew she had three major obstacles in her way.

The first, this town was suspicious of outsiders, which she was.

The second, some will know she promised to deal with the demon, which she did but she had no solid proof.

The Third, despite the known portal and the towns awarness of magic she had a feeling they would also be suspicious of any and all magic users...

Which she was...

She took another bite of her meal, a thoughtful look on her face as she contemplates revealing more about herself then she had been planning too...at least right now...
*Brindas
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *Brindas »


LadyLightning,Jul 22 2015 wrote: For another alchemist, the successful formulation of a specific chemical from mundane household items may be a cause for feeling pride in one's mental acumen. Perhaps a little fear that people less qualified are living with the ingredients every day, depending on the substance in question. For Krystelle, however, the success is devoid of feeling. It is only to be expected of her that she set right her failure, and though the intended process is wholly reliant on circumstance and may not even work, this is the only thing she can think of to alleviate that nagging little thought in the back of her subconscious, that she has transgressed against her conditioning.

Quickly, Krystelle recalls the estimated width and height of the pages, adds an inch in each direction, and selects a baking sheet from Brindas' cupboard. She sets the flask, half-filled with her acetone, on the counter beside it, and begins to drift through the halls in search of the Doctor.


"...Doctor Brindas!" she calls, her equivalent of shouting roughly equal in volume to a typical speaking voice. Should she discover the Doctor, she would speak the following information. "...The acetone is complete. I have prepared a shallow tray for this next part of our process. I will await your leisure in the kitchen. Please bring the pages, once you are finished perusing what remains legible."

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(( ....Just gonna use the built-in margins from now on, lels. Getting tiring trying to arrange them myself. Also, no worries Lyri! Take your time, do your thing, take care of you first! We're better at waiting than your teacher is! ))
The doctor would bring the remaining pages over to the tray, after scrawling down the words he could make out. He gives Krystelle a nod, carefully placing the first piece of paper into the liquid. He's not sure if it will remove new ink before old, but any idea is certainly better than no idea...
*EM Lyrium
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *EM Lyrium »


-- Miranda --
Luizlurgh, Preularith.


Noting the woman's silence, Ann stands and quietly moves toward the kitchen with quiet footsteps across the wooden floor. The smell of freshly baked pie, apples and cinnamon waft from the direction she had departed in. Lifting a wooden paddle to withdraw the dessert from the stone kiln, her movements are accompanied by the questioning voice of Jareth from across the table as he swallowed the last chewed morsel from his plate.

"Do you have any thoughts on what you will do now, M'Lady? You are welcome to stay with as for as long as you need, though I imagine you have a home of your own that you miss dearly. . ."
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