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    Extreme Violets [Hugo/Violet - Closed]

    Lilac
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:40 am

    Note: This thread is an import of a thread from the old Zetaboards site. The original thread can be found here


    Hugo's head was sore, and his first thought was at how much he really drank last night. He remembered pretty quickly that it wasn't that much, and he sat there on the street corner wondering just why his head was splitting. Then, the policeman who was standing over his mostly unconscious body roughly grabbed him by the shoulders, and dragged him into a standing position. After a confused greeting, the officer politely informed him, gently, that sleeping in public places is a civil crime. And by "politely" I mean "viciously," and by "informed him" I mean "beat him," and by "gently" I mean "over the head," and by "that sleeping in public places is a civil crime" I mean "with a billy club."

    Once he was on his way, 3 stitches richer and 15 marks poorer by the local clinic, he dug around in his pocket to find a note with a couple of addresses, and a couple of tiny hearts that made him red around the ears. Or maybe that was the dried blood. He remembered what he was going to do this morning, and happily set off.

    A half hour later, he found himself in front of a small apartment complex, run by a scraggly old lady. It was fairly clean, but still cheap. He asked the woman, who looked like she was also the owner, at the front desk, "Where can I find Violet Fletcher?" She replied, "Down the hall, in door number 9. It's the 4th door on your left. And honey," She grabbed his arm to restrain him, "don't be a stranger..." She winked. And blew a kiss. He walked as quickly as was polite away and down the hall, and then checked the number again, and knocked on the door.
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:40 am

    Violet was giving a small mouse a bit of potion on a rather tasty treat; or rather, two potions: one experimental, the other, a potion that would sedate and numb it. After a few moments of waiting, she picked up the mouse and a small knife, and made a small cut on the rat.

    Purple blood oozed from the wound, then stopped. Violet held her breath, praying, and checked the mouse's breathing.

    It wasn't breathing.

    She swore, and placed the mouse back in its cage, in case it was only temporarily dead. She didn't count on it, though; this potion was giving her quite a bit of trouble. She'd dispose of the mouse in a full day's time, at which point, the potion would have definitely done its job, if it worked.

    Brooding for a moment, Violet heard voices down the hall, and a moment later, a knock at the door. She figured that this was probably the guy that Tourmaline had told her about, before she'd drunkenly stumbled to her own room.

    Opening the door, she was greeted by what would be a rather attractive young man, were he not covered in blood and dust. Violet recoiled, then composed herself. "You look like trash. Entrez, and give me a second."

    Violet turned from the door, and walked to her room, where she filled a small bottle from a large container of pink liquid that was sitting on her shelf. She came back out, and handed it to the man. "It's healing potion; I'm assuming that blood is yours. Please, come in and sit."

    "Is it safe to say that you're the man that Tourmaline drunkenly told me about before stumbling to her room?"

    Violet congratulated herself on doing a fantastic job ignoring the fact that this man was covered in dirt.

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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:40 am

    He nodded and smiled for a second, and then his smile turned into a deep frown. She looked the spitting image... Well, somewhat similar. It wasn't perfect, but the resemblance was there, so he gave her the greeting he and his old mentor used to use so frequently, "Libet est, mi belleria." He stepped inside, and pulled off his shoes, not wanting to track dirt everywhere. While she rummaged around, he glanced around at the front room, which seemed fairly homely. Further back, there seemed to be a fairly simple enclosure for lab-rats, and a dead or dying lab rat oozing purple crud. He didn't want to be impolite or mess with her observation, so he didn't go near it, but he found himself glancing over absentmindedly over and over.

    It seemed like a real possibility that it could be Life Alchemy, considering the way it was oozing and all, but it could also be simple brewing that went wrong for the poor creature. If it was, of course, he couldn't just ask her out of nowhere, that would be super suspicious, and he didn't want to scare her or something, then she'd absolutely lie to him. He also didn't want to dance around the issue in a frustrating game of who would actually have the- Wait, what? She was actually talking first so, he had to say something, "I uh, well... Yeah. Yeah. I'm me, er- I mean to say that I'm Hugo daimler, and I know illegal alchemy too- not to, uh suggest that you know Life Alchemy or something, which is just an example, Life Alchemy, not saying that anything here looks in particular like Life Alchemy, or something."

    Wow.
    That was rough.

    He coughed into his hand, and then accepted the drink that she was still holding. "Oh sorry, I have stitches in already." He smiled, and continued, "They were very expensive, and I want to get my marks' worth, you know?" He set it down on the table, and then took advantage of the continued silence to try again. "Look, let me start over so I don't look like I'm still drunk and/or 13 years old."

    He pulled a startlingly clean handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe his head while he continued, "My name is Hugo Daimler, I've been recently expelled from the Academy for savagely maiming a man with caustic chemicals. I came to the city in order to apply to the military in order to use my Cartic skills and also my Alchemical knowledge in such a way as to be accepted back, because I truly love the practice so dearly. I heard you might know a thing or two about alchemy from your friend tourmaline, so I figured I'd hop in and see whats what." He coughed, and tucked the handkerchief back away, "Also, I don't want to scare you or something, about Life Magic, if there's anyone more libertarian about illegal magic" the words dripped with disdain, "Then I swear that I haven't met him yet."
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:41 am

    Violet, startled at the sudden use of an ancient language, said, "I only read it, I don't speak it, sorry. I only translate dusty old manuscripts." She smiled at his flailings, not too concerned that he was someone who'd report to the Expiate.

    Indeed, the man endeared himself to Violet the moment he took off his shoes.

    Violet spoke, "Yes, I'm a Life Alchemist. That," she nodded toward the dead mouse in the corner, "is something that's given me a great amount of trouble for about six months now."

    She walked over to the mouse, checking it for signs of change. "I can see why Tourmaline thought I'd be interested in talking to you. Indeed, I also think that the concept of illegal magic" she said the words in much the same manner as he, "is an absurd concept, provided no one else is harmed in your experiments."

    No change in the mouse. "What kind of alchemy do you practice?"
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:41 am

    He was let down slightly by her response to his greeting, but the rest was alright. The answer was fairly straightforward, "Though she never really called it such, what my mentor taught me is probably what you would called Physical Alchemy, that is to say, physically changing or dealing with the nature of an object, rather than it's appearance and so such."

    He reached into his pocket and pullet out the same quarter pound iron block that he had shown Tourmaline the previous night. "This is something I've been working on for a very long time, and only got in working order in the past year or so. The basic idea is to convert Iron into energy, which would be an extremely violent reaction if I could get it to work." He held it out to her for her to look at, the sigil facing upwards, "The problem with that is that Iron is extremely attached to being Iron and not heat and light and so forth. The sigil there is a simple transmutation that converts about 70 percent of the Iron into an extremely oxidized compound of Iron, Fe2O5, which is a lot more unstable, physically speaking, and so is easier to transmute further into energy with a second delayed reaction, which is done by a second sigil overlaid on the other one. It's much more inefficient than the straight reaction, but much much easier."

    He took a moment to think, and then preempted an, admittedly fairly well founded and obvious, complaint. "I can see that there's definitely a violent application for them, but when I first made them, I was thinking about pretty benign applications." He smiled, "The first time I used one, I used to to blow up the legs of the chief disciplinary officer's chair when he sat down on it. The timing of something like that..."

    "A-anyway, I'm really interested, how does Life Alchemy work exactly? All I know is that it 'uses life energy with normal alchemy' but that seems like it's probably one of those populist grossly-oversimplified-phrases, like 'Walpurgi are corrupted men who make deals with demons in return for evil powers'"
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:41 am

    Violet took a long look at the iron. "That's smart. That's very smart. I'm not a Physical Alchemist myself, so I don't think I could suggest any ways to increase the efficiency..." She thought for a moment. "I don't know too much about compounds, but couldn't you find a theoretical compound that was a bit denser than... What was it? Fe2O5? It might make the magic do a bit more heavy lifting, but it would definitely be a bigger release."

    "Honestly, I think Tourmaline would be the one to talk about to this; she knows more about fusion and fission than I do."

    At his question, Violet quickly got up and retrieved her potion bag, and further within that, her three elemental potions. "Life Alchemy is... Complex. Obviously. Saying that it uses life energy with normal alchemy is somewhat like saying that Physical Alchemy is using physical energy with alchemy. It's true, but it's not really... In any way a useful definition."

    "My particular brand of life alchemy focuses on modifying the Anima-- very slightly, or temporarily, mind you-- so that you're able to do other things. The potion that killed that mouse will allow the cells of the body to regenerate more quickly, using energy from your Anima, even if you aren't a magic user. These potions allow you to manipulate elements for a few minutes as a Cantus user would."

    "As to how it actually works, it's... Strange. You have to encode very specific instructions on how you want the Anima and the different ingredients to work together. For example, if you wanted to tell your Anima to manipulate water according to your will," she pointed to the middle potion, "You'd need to show, within the potion, or whatever it is, your Anima what water is, what your will is, and what it looks like when the second is manipulating the first."

    "It gets technical at that point, but that's the basic idea."
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:41 am

    He listened happily to her praise and advice, and mentally wrote it down for future review, and also agreed about talking to Tourmaline, "I'll see if I can't talk to her some time, when she's not drunk or unconscious." He shuddered in memory, "Such a small girl for so much liquor..." After that, he nodded knowingly to her explanation of Life Alchemy. Parts of it seemed similar to Physical Alchemy, but then again, his knowledge of the field wasn't particularly nuanced or complex.

    "Isn't the Anima the source of energy for Cantus magic? I was under the impression that it grew in proportion to the use of Cantus magic, so that someone who didn't use that kind of magic would have a much, ah, "smaller" Anima. Is it possible that the Anima in something like a rat is too small for such a feat as self-regeneration?"
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:41 am

    Violet laughed. "Yes, I think she'd agree with you. She's still sleeping it off, if you were wondering. Poor Tourmaline... Still, I can't protect her from herself; personal freedom and all that."

    Listening to him speak, Violet could have hit herself. "I'm a moron. A complete and utter buffoon." She ran to her room, and unlocked with magic a small metal box, which contained... A smaller metal box, covered in Cartic runes. She brought it out.

    "If you tell anyone I have this, I'll personally hunt you down and kill you; however, you seem genuinely interested in Life Alchemy, so I'll tell you."

    "A few years ago, I figured out how to create something like a pseudo-Anima. It functions as an Anima, just with no intelligence; it's an identity without will, if that makes sense. I haven't heard that an Anima grows stronger with Cantus use. However, you are quite correct in saying that a mouse Anima isn't nearly strong enough to sustain this."

    "With these potions," she indicated the ones on the table, "I merely used the rats to test if the potion itself would kill them. The active use of those was... Well, active. This however, is passive; these mice are having the effect activated regardless of their will, and the strain on their Anima kills them!"

    "So now what I need to do..." She slumped a bit. "Now what I need to do is figure out how to put an Anima into a body... In other words, I need to solve the problem that Life Alchemy has been working on since its inception. I need to create a Homunculus."
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:41 am

    He practically ogled the box the whole time she was speaking. It was a very nice box, covered in fascinating designs and shapes, it had an indescribable way of enamoring him. However, separate from that, her last words instilled a feeling a dread in his gut. "Are you sure you have to do that? It sounds... Inhumane..." He looked away from her face, like a guilty child. "I don't know. The idea of that seems rather painful, to be forced with a new identity and will, not your own? Regardless of the implications, it seems like such a dreadful way to be..." He became nervous, and coughed. "Look, I didn't come to your house to insult your work, I swear I won't tell anyone, whatever you decide, because it's none of my business."

    He looked around for something to change the subject with, but nothing jumped out to him, the room, for all its decorations and articles and such, was practically bare in the face of impending foux pas. Still, ever determined to do his best, he made a strong attempt. "You're an alchemist, working mostly legally here, in one of the few places where legal alchemy exists, would you know anyone who would be able to train me further in my own skills? Or even a place where such knowledge would be collected, like a sort of... Underground, illegal knowledge library, or something."
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    Post by Lilac Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:42 am

    Violet said, "It's not completely unethical. In the case of a mouse, it would just be overpowering its Anima with this-- changing its identity. Actually, if I could figure out how to replicate will as well as Anima, I could make a living creature out of anything. I'll have to think on it."

    "And don't worry about insulting my work. A part of being a moral Life Alchemist means taking moral criticism when it comes. I don't want to step over the line, despite the illegality of my study."

    Violet grew suddenly suspicious at his line of questioning-- having recently gone to the Haven with Tourmaline, and being shown such a library. "I would be willing to teach you, if that's what you want. I'm an independent researcher, so I do my own experiments; you can help me in these experiments, and in return, I'll teach you what I know."

    She didn't address the "illegal underground library" piece, still worried about the specificity of his question.

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