50 Ash, Year 123
[Closed - Solo]
The sisters walked through the Umbrium together, having used the lift from the Luxium to get to the undercity. Hilana had work to do, Lia was going to do some browsing and get some material of her own for her own craft. She was not a Runeforger, had no interest whatever in learning its incredibly involved and exceedingly complex techniques, but she could acquire spellcloth and runethread for a decent price here, along with all kinds of regular fabric and regular tailoring supplies. She supposed that was the good thing about Hilana having jobs above and below; she could check and see things and if she thought Lia might be interested, then the elder sister could make the trip down. There may have been things Hilana could enhance and improve upon with Alchemy, but runeforged materials were most decidedly not some of them.
"I'll see you later," Lia smiled at her, taking her own featherlight satchel with her to carry her purchases as they reached Harataecia's Blood. "Do not go too crazy with this." She would likely make her way home before Hilana did, but dinner was already prepared and only needed to be heated up.
"I won't," Hilana was cheerful. "Have no fear of that." There was no such thing as too crazy, after all. Not with poisons and plants. She waved her off and knocked on the door. It opened for her, and she stepped inside.
"You are early," Zosar remarked, as the door closed behind her. The lean man was weighing some ingredients on a scale as he made some notes in a rather well-worn book on the counter.
"Yes sir. Better than late," she bowed her head in greeting, and made her way towards him. The shop was similar to Vasilei's, but at the same time... this wasn't meant for healing. None of it. Everything in here was quite capable of great harm, most of it fatal, and all of it locked up in negation-enhanced cases. she had gotten access to them after her probationary period, and because her constantly needing ingredients had gotten old. Now she could get them on her own, and she was proving quite capable of waiting on customers when they came in. Her knowledge was well-grounded; maybe not as advanced as her employer's or her great-aunt's, but she had a solid foundation from which to draw upon, and she had learned the inventory well. And perhaps most importantly, Hilana was not squeamish.
"Do you have the cobra venom?" Zosar asked her as she set set her rucksack down on the floor behind the counter, opening it.
"I do. I collected it this morning," Hilana retrieved three vials. Some of which she collected from her serpents would come here, some went to Vasilei's for making antivenin. It was always in demand; there were no shortage of snakes in the wild and snakebite was a common injury, especially for those that lived beyond the city. Not all of the villages and tribes had Mesmers or Negators that could keep them away. With the increased demand, she would just have to get a bigger place so she could have more snakes in order to collect more venom. But that was something to talk to Lia about and figure out a solution. Hilana had already turned her spare room into a fairly full snake room, and she did need more space for more snakes. That was going to mean finding somewhere else. Maybe she could get property outside of the city and build a place...
Where there was a will, there was a way. She'd find a way to make it work for them somehow. She just didn't want to be going back to Tertium. And if she had her way... she wouldn't. She liked the freedom away from her father and the bulk of her family.
"Good. I have an order waiting for you to fill with it. Go grab the blue manual from the back room and look for page sixty-one. It's an ointment of sorts," the man explained. As it was, whatever the client wanted to do with it, it was none of their business. What was their business was the practice of making it. Once it left their hands? It was no longer their concern. Of course, it might become Hilana's concern topside if someone came into Sweet Remedies with the symptoms of something that had been made in this very shop, and that was definitely a conflict of interest... But that was the way it went, wasn't it? Poisons and their cures. The only one that was guaranteed was pesticyte, and even then... one just had to be smart about that in order to hoodwink the dragonshard, such as it was... if that could even work. Hilana had her plans, and she knew she would need to get her hands on one to test it, but that was all in good time.
"Yes, sir," Hilana nodded, and slipped into the back to open the hidden cabinet and retrieve the manual. Zosar called his books of notes and recipes manuals, whereas her great-aunt had called them cookbooks, which was what the Vastiana chose to call her own as well. It didn't matter that ingesting these recipes might kill them, it still involved cooking. It counted. Semantics. Her skirts swished as she sorted over the shelf, and finally found the one he wanted. Most of his manuals were colour-coded to make it easier on a glance as to what they were wanting to use, and the blue one in question had to do with reptiles. Venom from snakes, acid from basilisks and wyverns, skins and other substances from tegus and other lizards... the sky was the limit. Re'hyaeans may have more more resistant than a Vastian to poisons and sicknesses, but that just meant you had to overload their system.
She returned to the counter, setting the manual up before setting the vials on the rack out of the way and looking over the recipe so that she knew what she needed to grab. Alginate, treated water, venom, and thistle tumbleweed... Before opening anything, the Vastiana washed her hands and covered the bottom half of her face with a negated cloth. It would allow air in, but it would keep the ingredients she was working with out as to avoid ingesting anything unintentionally. As with what she had learned from her great-aunt and Vasilei, Zosar chose his measurements in weights, and this would require the scale, precision, and a lot of patience. It was never so easy as to just throw things together, not when you built a reputation on being able to promise something quite exact. When a client came in with a specific request, the important thing was to match it. They may only want to paralyze, not kill, and a few grams over of some substance would push the victim into the arms of Wraedan sooner than the client wanted. "How many do you want me to make?" she inquired, looking over at her boss.
"If you have enough venom, two. One for the client, one for the shelf," Zosar didn't even look up from his work as he continued to weigh and measure, making notes.
"Understood." Unlike Vasilei, Zosar did not tend towards talking much, and Hilana knew her usual verbosity could be irritating. Besides, she needed to concentrate. She placed the steel measuring bowl on the scale, and began to weigh out the amount of venom she had collected that morning. One vial, two... part of the third gave her enough for twice the recipe as it was written down, and she capped the third vial. It would remain here, and more would come the next time she was in, or someone else supplied it. The little measuring bowl was removed from the scale, and Hilana set it aside before starting to weigh out the alginate. The counter-weight was set, and Hilana began to spoon it into the dish, her hands calm and steady. She did not shake. The alginate would help thicken and add the gelatinous texture that the final product would produce. Treated water that had been worked with alchemy, though she knew she could likely have created the same with her Elementalism. Purity came from that which was Manifested by a mage, just as how the lyrethillium glass was so desirable for working with. The thistle tumbleweed was a nasty piece of work. It wasn't uncommon out in the desert, but what some people did not understand was just how toxic the noxious plant could be. Drought-like conditions, which was pretty much the whole of Atraxia, could contribute to the toxicity levels of the plant, and it could cause many symptoms, from upset stomachs to death. It was all in how one applied it, after all. It had been dried and ground down, and now it could be used here.
With the weights of each of the ingredients confirmed, Hilana started the mixing. Each bowl was emptied carefully into a larger glass beaker - liquids first, from the venom to the water. The tumbleweed went next, and she added the alginate last. The beaker was placed over a hot pad - a tile inlaid with scrivening and pyrolyth, and it was activated while she began to stir the mixture, watching as it began to congeal. It would be a slow process, but an exacting one, and she had to be patient. The hot pad would take its time to bring it to a boil, while Hilana continued to stir the unguent. The liquids and heat would activate the alginate, which had been made by alchemy fairly recently, she knew, and it would help transform the watery mixture into a thick unguent, an ointment, such as it was.
Zosar was watching her progress now, his expression fairly impossible to read. Then again, Hilana wasn't paying attention to him, but to her craft. Watching it come together was oddly satisfying, and once it came to the temperature, Hilana was able to use a set of padded tongs to lift the beaker from the hot pad and onto a cooling rack to let it settle, and sat back on her high stool. She wouldn't peel off the gloves yet, as she had to transfer her product into two squat jars that Zosar put down on the table for her, and then clean up. "That looks right," he told her finally once she poured the contents between the jars, guiding the last of it out with Influenced air rather than using a scraper - this way she got every last bit of it from the glassware and it would be ready to wash. "Good job. I'll handle the labelling." And she would, of course, take the equipment that she had used to the back to clean up. That was the way it went. The bottom-ranking person always got the scutwork, and until or unless she started her own place, that was going to be her.
Perhaps one day. All in good time.
[Closed - Solo]
The sisters walked through the Umbrium together, having used the lift from the Luxium to get to the undercity. Hilana had work to do, Lia was going to do some browsing and get some material of her own for her own craft. She was not a Runeforger, had no interest whatever in learning its incredibly involved and exceedingly complex techniques, but she could acquire spellcloth and runethread for a decent price here, along with all kinds of regular fabric and regular tailoring supplies. She supposed that was the good thing about Hilana having jobs above and below; she could check and see things and if she thought Lia might be interested, then the elder sister could make the trip down. There may have been things Hilana could enhance and improve upon with Alchemy, but runeforged materials were most decidedly not some of them.
"I'll see you later," Lia smiled at her, taking her own featherlight satchel with her to carry her purchases as they reached Harataecia's Blood. "Do not go too crazy with this." She would likely make her way home before Hilana did, but dinner was already prepared and only needed to be heated up.
"I won't," Hilana was cheerful. "Have no fear of that." There was no such thing as too crazy, after all. Not with poisons and plants. She waved her off and knocked on the door. It opened for her, and she stepped inside.
"You are early," Zosar remarked, as the door closed behind her. The lean man was weighing some ingredients on a scale as he made some notes in a rather well-worn book on the counter.
"Yes sir. Better than late," she bowed her head in greeting, and made her way towards him. The shop was similar to Vasilei's, but at the same time... this wasn't meant for healing. None of it. Everything in here was quite capable of great harm, most of it fatal, and all of it locked up in negation-enhanced cases. she had gotten access to them after her probationary period, and because her constantly needing ingredients had gotten old. Now she could get them on her own, and she was proving quite capable of waiting on customers when they came in. Her knowledge was well-grounded; maybe not as advanced as her employer's or her great-aunt's, but she had a solid foundation from which to draw upon, and she had learned the inventory well. And perhaps most importantly, Hilana was not squeamish.
"Do you have the cobra venom?" Zosar asked her as she set set her rucksack down on the floor behind the counter, opening it.
"I do. I collected it this morning," Hilana retrieved three vials. Some of which she collected from her serpents would come here, some went to Vasilei's for making antivenin. It was always in demand; there were no shortage of snakes in the wild and snakebite was a common injury, especially for those that lived beyond the city. Not all of the villages and tribes had Mesmers or Negators that could keep them away. With the increased demand, she would just have to get a bigger place so she could have more snakes in order to collect more venom. But that was something to talk to Lia about and figure out a solution. Hilana had already turned her spare room into a fairly full snake room, and she did need more space for more snakes. That was going to mean finding somewhere else. Maybe she could get property outside of the city and build a place...
Where there was a will, there was a way. She'd find a way to make it work for them somehow. She just didn't want to be going back to Tertium. And if she had her way... she wouldn't. She liked the freedom away from her father and the bulk of her family.
"Good. I have an order waiting for you to fill with it. Go grab the blue manual from the back room and look for page sixty-one. It's an ointment of sorts," the man explained. As it was, whatever the client wanted to do with it, it was none of their business. What was their business was the practice of making it. Once it left their hands? It was no longer their concern. Of course, it might become Hilana's concern topside if someone came into Sweet Remedies with the symptoms of something that had been made in this very shop, and that was definitely a conflict of interest... But that was the way it went, wasn't it? Poisons and their cures. The only one that was guaranteed was pesticyte, and even then... one just had to be smart about that in order to hoodwink the dragonshard, such as it was... if that could even work. Hilana had her plans, and she knew she would need to get her hands on one to test it, but that was all in good time.
"Yes, sir," Hilana nodded, and slipped into the back to open the hidden cabinet and retrieve the manual. Zosar called his books of notes and recipes manuals, whereas her great-aunt had called them cookbooks, which was what the Vastiana chose to call her own as well. It didn't matter that ingesting these recipes might kill them, it still involved cooking. It counted. Semantics. Her skirts swished as she sorted over the shelf, and finally found the one he wanted. Most of his manuals were colour-coded to make it easier on a glance as to what they were wanting to use, and the blue one in question had to do with reptiles. Venom from snakes, acid from basilisks and wyverns, skins and other substances from tegus and other lizards... the sky was the limit. Re'hyaeans may have more more resistant than a Vastian to poisons and sicknesses, but that just meant you had to overload their system.
She returned to the counter, setting the manual up before setting the vials on the rack out of the way and looking over the recipe so that she knew what she needed to grab. Alginate, treated water, venom, and thistle tumbleweed... Before opening anything, the Vastiana washed her hands and covered the bottom half of her face with a negated cloth. It would allow air in, but it would keep the ingredients she was working with out as to avoid ingesting anything unintentionally. As with what she had learned from her great-aunt and Vasilei, Zosar chose his measurements in weights, and this would require the scale, precision, and a lot of patience. It was never so easy as to just throw things together, not when you built a reputation on being able to promise something quite exact. When a client came in with a specific request, the important thing was to match it. They may only want to paralyze, not kill, and a few grams over of some substance would push the victim into the arms of Wraedan sooner than the client wanted. "How many do you want me to make?" she inquired, looking over at her boss.
"If you have enough venom, two. One for the client, one for the shelf," Zosar didn't even look up from his work as he continued to weigh and measure, making notes.
"Understood." Unlike Vasilei, Zosar did not tend towards talking much, and Hilana knew her usual verbosity could be irritating. Besides, she needed to concentrate. She placed the steel measuring bowl on the scale, and began to weigh out the amount of venom she had collected that morning. One vial, two... part of the third gave her enough for twice the recipe as it was written down, and she capped the third vial. It would remain here, and more would come the next time she was in, or someone else supplied it. The little measuring bowl was removed from the scale, and Hilana set it aside before starting to weigh out the alginate. The counter-weight was set, and Hilana began to spoon it into the dish, her hands calm and steady. She did not shake. The alginate would help thicken and add the gelatinous texture that the final product would produce. Treated water that had been worked with alchemy, though she knew she could likely have created the same with her Elementalism. Purity came from that which was Manifested by a mage, just as how the lyrethillium glass was so desirable for working with. The thistle tumbleweed was a nasty piece of work. It wasn't uncommon out in the desert, but what some people did not understand was just how toxic the noxious plant could be. Drought-like conditions, which was pretty much the whole of Atraxia, could contribute to the toxicity levels of the plant, and it could cause many symptoms, from upset stomachs to death. It was all in how one applied it, after all. It had been dried and ground down, and now it could be used here.
With the weights of each of the ingredients confirmed, Hilana started the mixing. Each bowl was emptied carefully into a larger glass beaker - liquids first, from the venom to the water. The tumbleweed went next, and she added the alginate last. The beaker was placed over a hot pad - a tile inlaid with scrivening and pyrolyth, and it was activated while she began to stir the mixture, watching as it began to congeal. It would be a slow process, but an exacting one, and she had to be patient. The hot pad would take its time to bring it to a boil, while Hilana continued to stir the unguent. The liquids and heat would activate the alginate, which had been made by alchemy fairly recently, she knew, and it would help transform the watery mixture into a thick unguent, an ointment, such as it was.
Zosar was watching her progress now, his expression fairly impossible to read. Then again, Hilana wasn't paying attention to him, but to her craft. Watching it come together was oddly satisfying, and once it came to the temperature, Hilana was able to use a set of padded tongs to lift the beaker from the hot pad and onto a cooling rack to let it settle, and sat back on her high stool. She wouldn't peel off the gloves yet, as she had to transfer her product into two squat jars that Zosar put down on the table for her, and then clean up. "That looks right," he told her finally once she poured the contents between the jars, guiding the last of it out with Influenced air rather than using a scraper - this way she got every last bit of it from the glassware and it would be ready to wash. "Good job. I'll handle the labelling." And she would, of course, take the equipment that she had used to the back to clean up. That was the way it went. The bottom-ranking person always got the scutwork, and until or unless she started her own place, that was going to be her.
Perhaps one day. All in good time.
