Cylus 10, Arc 717
It was late, and the laboratory at Rynmere University was empty – safe for one person, a tall man with cool blue eyes that was garbed in dark colors and hard at work at one of the many tables that was illuminated by the light of a couple of large lamps. The man’s name was Doran, and he had been a simple professor, teaching chemistry before Syroa, the Immortal of Fury, Transformation, Acting and Lust had marked him, and he had realized the truth of what was going on in the world of Idalos. Xiur, the Immortal of Hope, was a liar and a traitor that was willing to sacrifice millions in the name of the so called greater good, and Vri who claimed to rule over death turned his back on those that begged him to save a dying lover.
He had made his first move against those divine beings in Vhalar in the frozen wasteland of Oscillus. Xiur had been greatly weakened by his attack, and he would have died if it hadn’t been for the intervention of his allies. He had fled the battlefield immediately afterwards and finally returned to his native Andaris earlier that season, after he had spent a few dozen trials in Augiery, among the Naerikk. He didn’t plan on staying though. It would be too dangerous for him to do so. None of the people in Andaris had been able to identify him as the man who had attacked Xiur yet, but somebody would eventually come and try to make him pay for his supposed crime. It was only a matter of time.
He was only here to tie up a few loose ends before he left again, as quietly as he had come – and to create a few things that would aid him in the coming trials. It would be a while until he would have access to a laboratory as well equipped as this one again. In fact he probably wouldn’t be able to practice his craft again until he arrived in Etzos, his ultimate destination where he hoped to find a safe haven as well as allies for his fight against Xiur – and against his father for Doran himself had been born from the union between an Immortal and a mortal woman, almost four centuries before – an Immortal that had lied to him and sent him on what had been supposed to be a suicide mission once.
At this point in time he was very likely one of the most skilled swordsmen in Andaris, if not in the entire kingdom, and he had a few abilities that few other men possessed due to his divine blood, but he was far from invulnerable. A well-executed attack would kill him just as easily as any mortal man. If he wanted to make it to Etzos, if he wanted to succeed he needed more than just a sharp blade. He possessed a suit of armor of the highest quality, but armor was heavy, it hindered your movements, and it slowed you down, and he needed to be able to move quickly. He needed a garment that had the protective properties of armor while being more flexible and only weighing a fraction of it. Furthermore he also needed a garment that offered some protection against fire.
When he had last visited Ne’haer at the beginning of the mission that would eventually take him to Oscillus and Xiur the city had been burning, and large parts of it had been ruined, and he considered it highly likely that such an event would take place again. In fact, the whole world would likely be on fire at one point during the war that was taking place between the Immortals. The battle for the tomb of Treid had only been the beginning and not the ending as the majority of the people of Idalos preferred to believe.
He had first heard of the Golden Salamander when he had been a university student in Viden, back when life had been much less complicated, and he had still believed that there was hope and that, maybe, most of the Immortals were benevolent after all. The animal that was native to Northern Idalos had a milky coating that was a slow acting acid if kept from exposure to air. If left to dry quickly, the substance could be used as a fire-proof coating however. At first he had considered simply acquiring a whole Golden Salamander hide, but then he had asked Luther Verran, a fellow alchemist and occasional rival of his, to sell him a flask of acid as a liquid would be much easier to combine with the other ingredients.
He put on a pair of protective gloves – when dealing with such substances, it was a good idea to take certain safety measures – and then he carefully opened the flask and poured its contents into a stone bowl that was unlikely to be damaged by the acid. While the acid slowly dried, he prepared his next reagent. At first he had considered using crystal – some crystals could be very hard, and a garment that had some of the properties of crystal would likely stop a few blows – but crystal was expensive, and thus he had eventually resorted to stone. He had also, briefly, considered metal, but he didn’t know what the salamander acid would do to it. He didn’t want his garment to dissolve in the middle of battle.
A few small pieces of a white stone were sitting on the table in front of him now. He put them into a large mortar and pestle and then started to grind them into a very fine powder, a feat that took a surprisingly large amount of strength and was quite time consuming.
Once that was done, he poured a bit of strong alcohol into another bowl and added the stone powder and then a bit of water since alcohol tended to evaporate quickly. Using a small spatula he dispersed the powder and then added fourth ingredient, a type of resin that he had harvested from a tree that grew somewhere in the forests of Rynmere and that would act as a binder. The result was his second reagent besides the salamander acid, a thick liquid that would eventually give his garment its protective properties.
For the next step he mixed his two reagents in a larger bowl and added more of the binding substance. He had never used salamander acid and stone powder together before and thus didn’t know if the two reagents would negate each other without such a binder. The final step was to take a piece of fine, black wool cloth that he had acquired from a local tailor and let it soak in the mixture until it had absorbed it in its entirety.
While he waited for that to happen, he took his mortar and pestle again and started to work on his second project which was a phosphorescent paste made from ground calcite. It was created in much the same way as the stone powder liquid that he had made before, but with less water and alcohol. He had already made that paste before with Sintih who had been a former student of his as well as the son of a woman that he had once loved. It could be applied to any object and turn it into a temporary, portable source of light that could be recharged by simply exposing it to sunlight. While he intended to use the garment for himself, he planned on selling the paste in order to pay for his expenses on the trip to Etzos.
Unlike a torch the light sources made with his paste could be used when it was raining or when it was windy – and it could also be used in the presence of flammable substances which would hopefully appeal to his fellow scientists. The cloth had finally absorbed all of the liquid though. He carefully removed it from the bowl and spread it across the table, furrowing his brow as he did so. It appeared to be much the same as before, apart from the slightly unpleasant, acidic smell which would hopefully eventually evaporate. He thus took a knife and stabbed the cloth with all of his strength.
Nothing happened. There wasn’t even a hole. Pleased, he folded the cloth, filled the fluorescent paste into a couple of small glass containers and tidied up the laboratory. By the time that he left the university building, it was already evening, and he quickened his pace, although he did occasionally look behind himself to see if somebody was following him, a kind of behaviour that had become second nature to him since Oscillus.
He realized that he needed to hurry up if he wanted to make it to Ericor’s Elegance before the shop closed. The “Sorcerer of Silk” was quite skilled despite the appearance of his shop and the fact that it was located in the lower quarter of Andaris, and he would be able to turn his alchemical cloth into a warm and elegant cloak. He would also, which was just as important as his considerable skill as a tailor, ask few questions about his newest customer.
OOC: 1.541 words.
Bought:
Black wool cloak – 5 gn 5 sn
1 flask of golden salamander acid – 20 gn (instead of 10 gn due to the cost of transporting it to Andaris)
8 mm wide calcite x 3 - 8 gn 2 sn 8 cn
For the sake of preventing any kind of powergaming, I'm fine with the cloak eventually detereorating.
It was late, and the laboratory at Rynmere University was empty – safe for one person, a tall man with cool blue eyes that was garbed in dark colors and hard at work at one of the many tables that was illuminated by the light of a couple of large lamps. The man’s name was Doran, and he had been a simple professor, teaching chemistry before Syroa, the Immortal of Fury, Transformation, Acting and Lust had marked him, and he had realized the truth of what was going on in the world of Idalos. Xiur, the Immortal of Hope, was a liar and a traitor that was willing to sacrifice millions in the name of the so called greater good, and Vri who claimed to rule over death turned his back on those that begged him to save a dying lover.
He had made his first move against those divine beings in Vhalar in the frozen wasteland of Oscillus. Xiur had been greatly weakened by his attack, and he would have died if it hadn’t been for the intervention of his allies. He had fled the battlefield immediately afterwards and finally returned to his native Andaris earlier that season, after he had spent a few dozen trials in Augiery, among the Naerikk. He didn’t plan on staying though. It would be too dangerous for him to do so. None of the people in Andaris had been able to identify him as the man who had attacked Xiur yet, but somebody would eventually come and try to make him pay for his supposed crime. It was only a matter of time.
He was only here to tie up a few loose ends before he left again, as quietly as he had come – and to create a few things that would aid him in the coming trials. It would be a while until he would have access to a laboratory as well equipped as this one again. In fact he probably wouldn’t be able to practice his craft again until he arrived in Etzos, his ultimate destination where he hoped to find a safe haven as well as allies for his fight against Xiur – and against his father for Doran himself had been born from the union between an Immortal and a mortal woman, almost four centuries before – an Immortal that had lied to him and sent him on what had been supposed to be a suicide mission once.
At this point in time he was very likely one of the most skilled swordsmen in Andaris, if not in the entire kingdom, and he had a few abilities that few other men possessed due to his divine blood, but he was far from invulnerable. A well-executed attack would kill him just as easily as any mortal man. If he wanted to make it to Etzos, if he wanted to succeed he needed more than just a sharp blade. He possessed a suit of armor of the highest quality, but armor was heavy, it hindered your movements, and it slowed you down, and he needed to be able to move quickly. He needed a garment that had the protective properties of armor while being more flexible and only weighing a fraction of it. Furthermore he also needed a garment that offered some protection against fire.
When he had last visited Ne’haer at the beginning of the mission that would eventually take him to Oscillus and Xiur the city had been burning, and large parts of it had been ruined, and he considered it highly likely that such an event would take place again. In fact, the whole world would likely be on fire at one point during the war that was taking place between the Immortals. The battle for the tomb of Treid had only been the beginning and not the ending as the majority of the people of Idalos preferred to believe.
He had first heard of the Golden Salamander when he had been a university student in Viden, back when life had been much less complicated, and he had still believed that there was hope and that, maybe, most of the Immortals were benevolent after all. The animal that was native to Northern Idalos had a milky coating that was a slow acting acid if kept from exposure to air. If left to dry quickly, the substance could be used as a fire-proof coating however. At first he had considered simply acquiring a whole Golden Salamander hide, but then he had asked Luther Verran, a fellow alchemist and occasional rival of his, to sell him a flask of acid as a liquid would be much easier to combine with the other ingredients.
He put on a pair of protective gloves – when dealing with such substances, it was a good idea to take certain safety measures – and then he carefully opened the flask and poured its contents into a stone bowl that was unlikely to be damaged by the acid. While the acid slowly dried, he prepared his next reagent. At first he had considered using crystal – some crystals could be very hard, and a garment that had some of the properties of crystal would likely stop a few blows – but crystal was expensive, and thus he had eventually resorted to stone. He had also, briefly, considered metal, but he didn’t know what the salamander acid would do to it. He didn’t want his garment to dissolve in the middle of battle.
A few small pieces of a white stone were sitting on the table in front of him now. He put them into a large mortar and pestle and then started to grind them into a very fine powder, a feat that took a surprisingly large amount of strength and was quite time consuming.
Once that was done, he poured a bit of strong alcohol into another bowl and added the stone powder and then a bit of water since alcohol tended to evaporate quickly. Using a small spatula he dispersed the powder and then added fourth ingredient, a type of resin that he had harvested from a tree that grew somewhere in the forests of Rynmere and that would act as a binder. The result was his second reagent besides the salamander acid, a thick liquid that would eventually give his garment its protective properties.
For the next step he mixed his two reagents in a larger bowl and added more of the binding substance. He had never used salamander acid and stone powder together before and thus didn’t know if the two reagents would negate each other without such a binder. The final step was to take a piece of fine, black wool cloth that he had acquired from a local tailor and let it soak in the mixture until it had absorbed it in its entirety.
While he waited for that to happen, he took his mortar and pestle again and started to work on his second project which was a phosphorescent paste made from ground calcite. It was created in much the same way as the stone powder liquid that he had made before, but with less water and alcohol. He had already made that paste before with Sintih who had been a former student of his as well as the son of a woman that he had once loved. It could be applied to any object and turn it into a temporary, portable source of light that could be recharged by simply exposing it to sunlight. While he intended to use the garment for himself, he planned on selling the paste in order to pay for his expenses on the trip to Etzos.
Unlike a torch the light sources made with his paste could be used when it was raining or when it was windy – and it could also be used in the presence of flammable substances which would hopefully appeal to his fellow scientists. The cloth had finally absorbed all of the liquid though. He carefully removed it from the bowl and spread it across the table, furrowing his brow as he did so. It appeared to be much the same as before, apart from the slightly unpleasant, acidic smell which would hopefully eventually evaporate. He thus took a knife and stabbed the cloth with all of his strength.
Nothing happened. There wasn’t even a hole. Pleased, he folded the cloth, filled the fluorescent paste into a couple of small glass containers and tidied up the laboratory. By the time that he left the university building, it was already evening, and he quickened his pace, although he did occasionally look behind himself to see if somebody was following him, a kind of behaviour that had become second nature to him since Oscillus.
He realized that he needed to hurry up if he wanted to make it to Ericor’s Elegance before the shop closed. The “Sorcerer of Silk” was quite skilled despite the appearance of his shop and the fact that it was located in the lower quarter of Andaris, and he would be able to turn his alchemical cloth into a warm and elegant cloak. He would also, which was just as important as his considerable skill as a tailor, ask few questions about his newest customer.
OOC: 1.541 words.
Bought:
Black wool cloak – 5 gn 5 sn
1 flask of golden salamander acid – 20 gn (instead of 10 gn due to the cost of transporting it to Andaris)
8 mm wide calcite x 3 - 8 gn 2 sn 8 cn
For the sake of preventing any kind of powergaming, I'm fine with the cloak eventually detereorating.
