Closed A Thread of a Different Color

[Ink]

TimestampTimestamp for any date you want in Spring 515 av

An entirely unremarkable dozen of bells had passed on the island. Few bells could be counted as exceptional though when life could stretch through millennia. The Masters, the Wizards, and Apprentices were all doing as they always did; working. This included Rayage whose manipulations mastered all that was mutable. It been any number of bells in engrossing work, new fields of study were always just one leap of logic away. With an eternity to research, no subject was safe from the mind of a Nuit.

At some point, the doors of her laboratory had shifted open to let a subtle figure in. Sluggish in the way of their kind, a specimen with a cheeky look about him had secreted himself away in Lab 45E. The vessel of choice was scruffy by definition not by neglect, the wiry bush of facial hair had seen wax and shown no signs of defeat. His hair was slicked back and whether by grease or design stand in place. His robes, to the tailor's eye, were of exemplary craftsmanship but by pattern they were in all ways unremarkable. Without so much as a by-your-leave the strange sample of Nuithood scuttled into a corner which he most certainly did not own and slumped down against the wall.

Producing a journal without title or obvious designation he went straight away to read as though the deep and hazardous lab was nothing more than a restful nook in the library. After a number of pages he peered up over the leather bindings, “Any chance you have a lamp?”

There were two types of madness more prevalent on Sahova than other disorders. One in which magic took too much of one’s mind and left but a husk fit for channeling djed until they couldn’t help but drool or instead of a psychopath who would as soon invite one to tea as nuzzle their entrails. The second kind of madness was more subtle, it was what could manifest within the psyche when an undead’s purpose failed them; when there was nothing left to live for time made for a frigid bedfellow. There was something about this particular soul that suggested hints of the second version of madness. Perhaps his intent was to taunt one Master too many until one grew so annoyed with his instructions and antics they slew him.

Of course, on Sahova, even suicide was a premeditated political move.

[Rayage]

Spring 10 515 AV

Bandages still covered the majority of the Masters body as she worked. The heat within could still be felt, but it was less intense than the night of the event. She was beginning to think that her soul was permanently marred by her misuse of reimancy, or rather overuse of it. That night she had pushed herself beyond and fell past the cliff into the dark unknown. She had given too much of herself, and she was suffering for it. Her moments were slower than usual as she worked on the project she had started last season.

Currently she was resting her weary body. It seemed to respond even more sluggish than usual, and there was a notable lag between what she wanted to do and when the event happened. It made writing down these notes and observations of her experiments all the more tedious. This body, she would have to change soon, it was giving out thanks to the episode. The quill moved a slow pace, the nuit outlining her thoughts on the parchment, her concerns, her worries… The snakes she had been experimenting on were growing still, sick, and sluggish. The alchemical radiation had poisoned their body and soul, and there wasn’t much she could do to aid in their recovery. The nuit was an Alchemist, not a healer, and did not possess any sort of knowledge to help the snakes along. She had noted in her many words that perhaps if she learned to properly care for and raise the snakes, that perhaps her chances of success would be greater.

However, the paper she wrote was all conjecture. The slow process of moving the quill across the page was almost aggravating to the nuit. Her body was not responding. She too was sick, but in a much different way than the snakes. The alchemical radiation and the intense rounds of transmutations, the opening of the doorway of change, held its price even for the practitioner of the art. Nothing, when Alchemy was used, came out exactly the same as it once was. It was part of the risk and the greatness of Alchemy. The radiation had a negative effect towards her body, and the heavy amounts of alchemical flux she had been exposing herself to without protection, had indeed taken its toll.

Most of the snakes she had experimented on had died in the initial alchemy blasts. This problem had set her research back even further, and made her worry if she could get the results that she so desired. She needed to find strong souls. Stronger souls… The snakes needed a stronger will to live. Only the strong survived the alchemical experimentations, and the odds were forever against the alchemist. However, if there could be a breakthrough, one or maybe two that survive, breaking that ceiling of certain death, then success was exponentially greater. This had been seen in her earlier experiments with H1 and H2-A. Those who survive the initial rounds are more likely, with proper care, to survive later rounds. This was not always the case, but the more rounds the subject lived the more likely they will survive the next. It was a sort of acquired…

The door to her lab opened and a presence interrupted her thoughts. Placing her quill down she looked at the intruder. She did not move from the chair she sat in, but observed the intruder. When he scurried into the corner, she picked up her quill and finished her thoughts. She dotted the last sentence, and placed the quill down once again turning her attention towards the man who entered her lab. She usually was not disturbed and the man’s strange demeanor made her hesitant. She was not a combat wizard and so she could not force the man out of her lab. Rising from her chair when the question was asked, she walked over slowly towards the man who was reading from the leather bound journal.

Her steps were slow and calculated as she approached the man, stopping but a few feet from his position. She looked down at the messy looking man and grimaced horribly at him, ”You do understand that this is a personal lab of a wizard?”

Her voice was full of authority as she looked upon the man, ”This is not the library. I do not have a lamp” she said taking her eyes off of the man to look at the magelight which lit her lab. Apparently it was not bright for the man, but it served her well in her lab. She frowned, ”And I do not have patience. If you do not have business with me, then I must ask you to leave.” she said, ”I have important work to do. Theories to prove…” she said.

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[Ink]

From his text the odd duck glanced over Rayage’s undead visage. “I understand that this lab belongs to a sycophant of Lector Qiao.” The tome slide shut. “An excellent retreat don’t you think?” His well covered shoulders gave a very mortal shrug. “A shame about the lamp…”

Drawing back to his feet, a gnarled twist of his lips landed upon the master of alchemy. “Patience is for the dead which we are not. I applaud you this great virtue. Your implication, though, that your virtue should move me is erroneous.”

“While laudable, virtue has no power in this place. You have no power in this place.” The invader spread his arms and indicated the very chamber promised to Rayage’s magonym. “I see no minions or magi fueled by personal fire. You have nothing with which to move me by but your words. Sadly your words are marginalized, by your own doing.”

His eyes focused on the weave of Rayage’s robe. “It was no coincidence that that I picked your laboratory. You are the wolf with pulled teeth. Qiao’s answer to Karte, and frankly, I think you are wanting. Could you best Parsminy? I think my wager is on him.”

“Mistress Rayage,” he said, intentionally conjugating the title to a diminutive and unaccepted rank on Sahova. “How does it feel to be the unused tool in an arsenal of a mad man? Do you long for his grip?” The grungy man laughed into her face. Shambling passed the Master like she was a footman at the door.

Settling at Rayage’s own vacated workspace to once again crack open his book. “My knowledge makes me more as a Master than your gold ring ever shall. I will assume your ignorance and provide you with my name; I am the Wizard Warick.” Back into his text he dove.

[Rayage]

Rayage watched and listened, not interrupting once as the man talked. At first she frowned at the accusations of the man. How wrong, how incorrect he really was, and to be so arrogant as to stride in here, in her lab, like it was simple the common labs! The more she listened the more she frowned the more she waited patiently, words churning in her head of things to say to this man, who is so auditions as to challenge her. She would surely make him pay, but as that thought went through her mind something clicked. Her presence alone could not move the man.

There was a couple ticks of silence when the man was finished with his speech, ”Wizard Warick,” the name came out of the nuits mouth like ice. She gave him a brief smile, acknowledging his words, a thoughtful nod, ”Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps you are not, or rather, with all your knowledge, have been sorely misinformed.”

She looked at her desk, the papers, her research, ”When I came to Sahova, this lab was empty. The resident alchemist died in a tragic… accident. The alchemists at the time were mostly in favor of the Archwizard. Qiao needed an Alchemist he could trust.” she told him walking slowly up to the obnoxious wizard before her, ”And trust, or something similar, is what I have established. Trust is something that Karte lacks. Qiao is awfully suspicious of him, and so you are right. I am Qiaos answer to the problem presented. I also was Karte’s apprentice, and for good reason. I did not understand it then, but with me there Karte was limited to the questionable actions he could partake in.”

She paused, ”Karte is a man of secrets, even I do not know much about him. Though you are wrong on one regard, Wizad Warick. It was never a competition between Karte and I. There is no animosity. No reason to prove who is better than the other. We are ‘partners’”, even that word, ‘partners’, came out wrong sounding when the Master uttered it, like she did not even believe her own words, “and have been since my time here. I have no doubt that Karte is an alchemical genius, a force to be reckoned with, and he does have more political sway than I. However, you should not discount or mistake my lack of political power for sloppy transmutations. I am just as good an Alchemist as Karte, if not better.”

”It is rather audacious of you to come here like you are, Wizard Warick. What is it that you want? What is that you’ve come to prove? That I cannot force you out of my lab? You have proved it. If you are satisfied then you can leave. Or maybe someone as wise and knowledgeable as you can lend some advice this way.” However the last suggestion did not seem as open as the words would imply.

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