Toxic Is as Toxic Does [Solo]
Posted: Fri May 31, 2024 9:40 pm
8 Frost, Year 123
[Closed - Solo]
Hilana was situated in the alchemy lab in the back of Harataecia's Blood. It wasn't as substantial as Domina Clelia's, but it certainly had everything she could want to mess around with here. For what she was doing, brewing poisons and building on them, then enhancing them and changing them into something else, this was more than enough.
Beside her was a large vial of venom from an Atraxian Cobra. She wasn't using her own; Vasilei bought it from her so that they could use it to make products there in Sweet Remedies. This was something that Zosar, the proprietor of this shop, bought from someone else. The Vastiana had half a mind to get herself some more snakes so that she could supply him, too... but that would have to wait until she had moved house next season. Her apartment was already full, the spare bedroom fairly bursting from the enclosures she had made for the snakes that she already had. She couldn't very well add more without more room, not the big cobras. She could add the smaller ones... and yet, that venom was rarer still, and she knew that that needed to become something of a signature. But those snakes made Athalia even more anxious. It was a bit of a tightrope that they walked, and Hilana had to mind her sister.
But the vial would have to wait. Hilana opened the stone container that held the freshly-made Alchemist's Clay, and she scooped up the agitation rod from its box. Water was measured out and poured in, along with some spoonfuls of Alchemic Acid, and distilled essence of aetherite. The rod was touched to the clay, and she began the process of priming it for use, stirring it and watching intently, watching its progress. She could recognize that it was ready thanks to her training with Domina Clelia, and a fair bit of training and practice.
She had had some time to think about her planned process, and now was the time to put it into action. If all was well, they should get two byproducts out of this experiment, and Hilana would would have something new to work with. If all went well... this would be something that could be used in multiple ways, and perhaps with refining, she might have something rather interesting on her hands. Varvara and Avaerys had told her before that if she wanted to achieve balance... she needed to have a better look at harming people rather than helping them. She chewed her lip and consulted her notes from the processes that she had brainstormed.
The clay was transferred into a lyrethillium alembic. The vial of cobra venom was poured in, and she stirred the mixture with the agitation rod before applying the cap and sealing it. It may not have been anything fancy, but that was just the start of the project. The distilling coil was attached to the cap over the alembic, and she positioned another lyrethillium beaker underneath it to catch whatever was distilled through it. If it proved out - she would check through Semblance and chromatography - then she should in theory get a new vial of venom with a rather enhanced potency. Which was a side project, and a useful one. That product could be used for other things, but first, this all needed to prove out.
She positioned the alembic on the stand over the magmatyte plate, and activated the scrivening with a touch of aether to let it start heating up the contents of the glassware. Now she could wait, watching with interest as she observed the process through the Semblance. Domina Clelia had advised doing that, in order to better understand the magic at play here, and while she might have liked her paedagoga nearby for something like this, it was not the most technically challenging experiment she had done to date. This was the result of many hours of lessons, and she knew what she was doing.
Well, hopefully.
The magmatyte reached temperatures that would have burned through a great deal else if it had not been in specially crafted metal and well-scrivened. This sort of thing Hilana hadn't even conceived of when she had first come to Solunarium - and now, years later, she was no longer surprised by it. She could study it, she could observe it, and she could use it for her Craft. The lyrethillium was one of the few substances that could stand the magmatyte without shattering from the heat, which was part of what made it suitable for this. The distillation moved the vapours from the mixture through the coil, producing a clear, light liquid as it dripped steadily into the beaker at the other end of the coil. This was the technique of absorption, distilling the substance into something pure and potent.
That would continue until every last bit of moisture was heated up from the alembic - utilizing the technique of assation, Hilana continued to cook the clay mixture in the glassware until it had effectively turned to powder. Once the liquid had stopped coming from the coil, Hilana had moved that carefully to another spot on the table, putting a fresh one down just to be safe - she didn't want to risk soiling that venom and risking its purity. It took some time, though the Vastiana was not minding as she watched the alchemical reactions through the glass with Semblance. Observing the process as it went through multiple techniques to see the results of each step was so different than reading about it, and she was not for the first time thankful to Domina Clelia for her thoroughness of her instructions. As she had said before, she wasn't teaching shoddy work. She was teaching a future Master, and she expected the young woman to do it properly.
Once the process of assation was completed, Hilana turned off the magmatyte plate and used protective gloves to lift the alembic from the plate to a pad where it could cool down on its own. She wouldn't worry about removing the cap and the worm-like distilling coil just yet, she just made sure that it was supported until the temperature was reduced enough to safely do so. There was no real rush at this stage while its temperature normalized; nothing was going to happen to the powder within the glass while it did. It was completely dry; there was no moisture left in it. Which was exactly what she wanted. Moisture, combined with the next step, would not do her any favours.
She was on a roll now as she picked up the scrivening supplies, dipping the brush into the spellwright's ink, and beginning to draw the sigil of isolation on yet another piece of glassware in front of her. This one was actually half full of something already - powdered sugar. Each brush stroke was made with aether and intention, paths leading to convergences as she drew the sigil. There was no need to be fancy, she just needed it to work. The time for flourishes would come some other day. The goal of this sigil was to isolate the sweetness of the sugar, and when she was done, she would continue to paint the sigils of catalyzation and stability on the same bowl. A third jar, though much smaller, received the sigil of dormancy. She checked her work once again with Semblance to make sure that it was proper, before she emptied the de-sweetened sugar out into a jar and checked the temperature of the powdered mixture in the alembic.
That was cool enough, so she used a brush that was was sitting in a squat jar containing a rather mild alchemist's acid to dissolve the seal that had secured the pieces together - the coil to the cap, and the cap to the alembic, wiping them down with a cloth and setting them on the tray. They would need to be cleaned properly later, once she had finished up her work. She was still using the protective mittens to keep her hands safe, since even though the lyrethillium glass had cooled down, it could still do a serious amount of damage to her hands.
The alembic was emptied into the glass bowl that had recently had the sugar in it, and now now she could activate the catalyst to infuse it with the results of her assation, stirring it with the agitation rod to make sure that everything was blended properly. It wouldn't do for the mixture to be uneven; she needed the powder to be fully blended. The sigil of stability was touched with her aether then, to activate it while she let it settle. After several minutes there, it was transferred to the jar and sealed shut. That was ready for its buyer, and she could turn her attention to the distilled venom...
"How did it go?" Lia asked when they met up afterwards. "You seem pleased."
"It went well," Hilana was nodding thoughtfully, her hands on her rucksack. Lia noticed that she was wearing the gloves that she used when her hands were bothering her. "I think that's the start of something very interesting. It gave me some ideas for something in the future."
"You know what, let's go out for dinner," she told her. "You've been working hard all day, and I think you need a break. My treat. Come on."
"I'm fine," she protested, shaking her head. "Truly. We can do up the chicken with the rice--"
"You may be, but I've got a craving for that chickpea stew at the Crevice, and there's no way for you to get it cooked in time," Lia was going to use Hilana's own methods of cheerfully steamrolling over any opposition against her. "So let's go. I know that you love their goat mandi and I'm pretty sure you haven't had that for a while..." The look on her sister's face told Lia that Hilana knew exactly what she was doing, but she definitely wasn't going to say no to some time with her, just the two of them.
Lia's arm went around her side, and she squeezed the two of them together briefly as they walked. Hilana wouldn't spill her secrets out here, but when they got home... well, Lia was learning some of alchemy through her sister. This was bound to be good.
[Closed - Solo]
Hilana was situated in the alchemy lab in the back of Harataecia's Blood. It wasn't as substantial as Domina Clelia's, but it certainly had everything she could want to mess around with here. For what she was doing, brewing poisons and building on them, then enhancing them and changing them into something else, this was more than enough.
Beside her was a large vial of venom from an Atraxian Cobra. She wasn't using her own; Vasilei bought it from her so that they could use it to make products there in Sweet Remedies. This was something that Zosar, the proprietor of this shop, bought from someone else. The Vastiana had half a mind to get herself some more snakes so that she could supply him, too... but that would have to wait until she had moved house next season. Her apartment was already full, the spare bedroom fairly bursting from the enclosures she had made for the snakes that she already had. She couldn't very well add more without more room, not the big cobras. She could add the smaller ones... and yet, that venom was rarer still, and she knew that that needed to become something of a signature. But those snakes made Athalia even more anxious. It was a bit of a tightrope that they walked, and Hilana had to mind her sister.
But the vial would have to wait. Hilana opened the stone container that held the freshly-made Alchemist's Clay, and she scooped up the agitation rod from its box. Water was measured out and poured in, along with some spoonfuls of Alchemic Acid, and distilled essence of aetherite. The rod was touched to the clay, and she began the process of priming it for use, stirring it and watching intently, watching its progress. She could recognize that it was ready thanks to her training with Domina Clelia, and a fair bit of training and practice.
She had had some time to think about her planned process, and now was the time to put it into action. If all was well, they should get two byproducts out of this experiment, and Hilana would would have something new to work with. If all went well... this would be something that could be used in multiple ways, and perhaps with refining, she might have something rather interesting on her hands. Varvara and Avaerys had told her before that if she wanted to achieve balance... she needed to have a better look at harming people rather than helping them. She chewed her lip and consulted her notes from the processes that she had brainstormed.
The clay was transferred into a lyrethillium alembic. The vial of cobra venom was poured in, and she stirred the mixture with the agitation rod before applying the cap and sealing it. It may not have been anything fancy, but that was just the start of the project. The distilling coil was attached to the cap over the alembic, and she positioned another lyrethillium beaker underneath it to catch whatever was distilled through it. If it proved out - she would check through Semblance and chromatography - then she should in theory get a new vial of venom with a rather enhanced potency. Which was a side project, and a useful one. That product could be used for other things, but first, this all needed to prove out.
She positioned the alembic on the stand over the magmatyte plate, and activated the scrivening with a touch of aether to let it start heating up the contents of the glassware. Now she could wait, watching with interest as she observed the process through the Semblance. Domina Clelia had advised doing that, in order to better understand the magic at play here, and while she might have liked her paedagoga nearby for something like this, it was not the most technically challenging experiment she had done to date. This was the result of many hours of lessons, and she knew what she was doing.
Well, hopefully.
The magmatyte reached temperatures that would have burned through a great deal else if it had not been in specially crafted metal and well-scrivened. This sort of thing Hilana hadn't even conceived of when she had first come to Solunarium - and now, years later, she was no longer surprised by it. She could study it, she could observe it, and she could use it for her Craft. The lyrethillium was one of the few substances that could stand the magmatyte without shattering from the heat, which was part of what made it suitable for this. The distillation moved the vapours from the mixture through the coil, producing a clear, light liquid as it dripped steadily into the beaker at the other end of the coil. This was the technique of absorption, distilling the substance into something pure and potent.
That would continue until every last bit of moisture was heated up from the alembic - utilizing the technique of assation, Hilana continued to cook the clay mixture in the glassware until it had effectively turned to powder. Once the liquid had stopped coming from the coil, Hilana had moved that carefully to another spot on the table, putting a fresh one down just to be safe - she didn't want to risk soiling that venom and risking its purity. It took some time, though the Vastiana was not minding as she watched the alchemical reactions through the glass with Semblance. Observing the process as it went through multiple techniques to see the results of each step was so different than reading about it, and she was not for the first time thankful to Domina Clelia for her thoroughness of her instructions. As she had said before, she wasn't teaching shoddy work. She was teaching a future Master, and she expected the young woman to do it properly.
Once the process of assation was completed, Hilana turned off the magmatyte plate and used protective gloves to lift the alembic from the plate to a pad where it could cool down on its own. She wouldn't worry about removing the cap and the worm-like distilling coil just yet, she just made sure that it was supported until the temperature was reduced enough to safely do so. There was no real rush at this stage while its temperature normalized; nothing was going to happen to the powder within the glass while it did. It was completely dry; there was no moisture left in it. Which was exactly what she wanted. Moisture, combined with the next step, would not do her any favours.
She was on a roll now as she picked up the scrivening supplies, dipping the brush into the spellwright's ink, and beginning to draw the sigil of isolation on yet another piece of glassware in front of her. This one was actually half full of something already - powdered sugar. Each brush stroke was made with aether and intention, paths leading to convergences as she drew the sigil. There was no need to be fancy, she just needed it to work. The time for flourishes would come some other day. The goal of this sigil was to isolate the sweetness of the sugar, and when she was done, she would continue to paint the sigils of catalyzation and stability on the same bowl. A third jar, though much smaller, received the sigil of dormancy. She checked her work once again with Semblance to make sure that it was proper, before she emptied the de-sweetened sugar out into a jar and checked the temperature of the powdered mixture in the alembic.
That was cool enough, so she used a brush that was was sitting in a squat jar containing a rather mild alchemist's acid to dissolve the seal that had secured the pieces together - the coil to the cap, and the cap to the alembic, wiping them down with a cloth and setting them on the tray. They would need to be cleaned properly later, once she had finished up her work. She was still using the protective mittens to keep her hands safe, since even though the lyrethillium glass had cooled down, it could still do a serious amount of damage to her hands.
The alembic was emptied into the glass bowl that had recently had the sugar in it, and now now she could activate the catalyst to infuse it with the results of her assation, stirring it with the agitation rod to make sure that everything was blended properly. It wouldn't do for the mixture to be uneven; she needed the powder to be fully blended. The sigil of stability was touched with her aether then, to activate it while she let it settle. After several minutes there, it was transferred to the jar and sealed shut. That was ready for its buyer, and she could turn her attention to the distilled venom...
~*~
"How did it go?" Lia asked when they met up afterwards. "You seem pleased."
"It went well," Hilana was nodding thoughtfully, her hands on her rucksack. Lia noticed that she was wearing the gloves that she used when her hands were bothering her. "I think that's the start of something very interesting. It gave me some ideas for something in the future."
"You know what, let's go out for dinner," she told her. "You've been working hard all day, and I think you need a break. My treat. Come on."
"I'm fine," she protested, shaking her head. "Truly. We can do up the chicken with the rice--"
"You may be, but I've got a craving for that chickpea stew at the Crevice, and there's no way for you to get it cooked in time," Lia was going to use Hilana's own methods of cheerfully steamrolling over any opposition against her. "So let's go. I know that you love their goat mandi and I'm pretty sure you haven't had that for a while..." The look on her sister's face told Lia that Hilana knew exactly what she was doing, but she definitely wasn't going to say no to some time with her, just the two of them.
Lia's arm went around her side, and she squeezed the two of them together briefly as they walked. Hilana wouldn't spill her secrets out here, but when they got home... well, Lia was learning some of alchemy through her sister. This was bound to be good.
