Alchemy Basic(needs mod)

[Korian]

Morning of the Tenth Brightening of the Second Cycle of Ioannes
Summer of Era II of the Celestine Mandate
Era XI Post Fractum

Korian hurried along the way to room 102, hoping he would not be late on the first day of class. He really wasn't given a specific time, though, so he chose to be there early, wishing to set a good impression to Master McGridle. McGridle? No, that's not right. McGirdle! That's it.

Finding the room, which was clearly marked, Korian paused to smooth his clothing before knocking on the already open door and poking his head inside. "Master McGirdle?"


ooc: If anyone would be kind enough to peer mod this, I would be grateful

[Dragon]

Room 102 was a very cramped room. All kinds of bottles, ingrediants, vials, fumes, furnaces, and lots and lots of other things were cramped in it. It was certainly not a spacious room and dancing would be a fatal crime. At least it had windows, two of them opened as well. That was needed for when smoke filled the lab and it needed to go out. All in all this was not the best lab in Telath but it had to do for teaching purposes. Just as well alchemy was not favored by the University, nor was the teacher too happy to teach it in the Universtiy and much more dreamt of his own private, secret lab.

Master Tubby McGirdle, the dwarf was a very nice and very rough person at the same time. One just had to get used to him. And not everyone could. "Oh come in, come in my child." The dwarf answered when he heard Korian. "You're my student I presume?" The dwarf was like any other dwarf, except that he had a rather short beard which was... singed badly. Plus his face was dirty with ash and coal. That on the other hand gave him a good look of a real alchemist. He was wearing all lether. Leather kilt, leather shirt and leather gloves. Even a leather cap. He also had a belt, which had all kinds of tools atached to it.

"So, tell me my boy, why do you want to learn alchemy. And don't give me 'because it's interesting'. I heard that far too many times. What is interesting about it. What do you know about it. What do you intend to do with such knowledge. Be as elaborative as you can get. Ramble as much as you wish. Well just tell me about yourself. I like knowing who I teach. I am not going to give such knowledge to just anyone who pays the crowns. It is a great and a powerful knowledge." With that the gnome leaned to one of the tables, since there were no chairs in the room, waiting for the reply from Korian.

[Korian]

Korian quickly took stock of the room, which looked quite impressive to him. After all, he had no knowledge of labs of any kind, let alone seen one. So to him, all of these strange chemicals and equipments looked pretty interesting. He smiled at Master McGirdle and entered. "Serale and good morning, Master McGirdle. Yes, I'm Korian, your new student."

Then Korian's smile faded away as the dwarf asked him to explain, in detail, why he had chosen alchemy. At that moment he wanted nothing more to simply turn around and walk back out of the classroom and to his shack near Weaver's Woods. In truth, he had had absolutely no idea why he had chosen alchemy. He had just looked at the list of offered classes and his eyes fell upon that particular class. So he chose it. A pretty poor reason in anyones book, surely. Instead, he sighed a little. "To be perfectly honest, Master McGirdle, I have no idea why I chose this class. I have no grand dreams or aspirations for the use of alchemy. It's just the one class that seemed to stand out to me on the list. Furthermore, I really don't even know what alchemy is. I mean, I've heard stories that alchemists can brew potions to make you immortal and can turn lead into gold, but, really, beyond that I know nothing." The longer he talked the more nervous he became. He was fairly sure that the dwarf was laughing at him, at least on the inside. Then, a weak smile "I guess that's probably the worst reason ever, huh?"

He waited for the inevitable scolding he was sure he had coming, then being told to get out and never come back. Why couldn't I have put more thought into this?

[Dragon]

The dwarf seemed to be dumbstruck. "Relax. You have to teach him. Just one or two more students and you'll have enough money to leave the university and get a lab of yourself. Just relax. You'll have students who'll be worth the knowledge soon." The alchemist tried to calm himself in his thoughts. And he knew that very soon he would quit teaching in the university. Very, very soon. For now though he still needed a bit more money and a bit more access to this lab. Sighing the dwarf waved off the thoughts and decided to get to teaching as fast as possible.

"Yes... that is a terrible reason. For you see alchemy is a great knowledge and one that should be respected. Well... you'll be getting just a glimpse into it, so I suppose your reasons, or rather lack of them shall be good enough. And so we shall begin. Get an apron. Get gloves and come here." The alchemist pointed to one of the walls where an apron and gloves were hanging. "You'll need that not to not get dirty, but for protection. For first lesson is - alchemy is dangerous. If you mix wrong ingredients you may blow up. See this beard? It used to be a lovely one, now it's a beard of an alchemist. Explosions are not that rare in this craft. Hopefully through your lifetime you'll endure just small ones. And yes believe me, you will have to endure explosions if you'll keep on practising alchemy!"

As soon as Korian was dressed and joined the dwarf, McGirdle continued. "I hope you understand that you have to be careful here? Explosions is not the only thing you should know about alchemy's dangers. You should never touch a fluid to determine it. It might burn your skin, or make it green, or even make hairs grow on it. You should never smell anything either. It can burn your lungs or cause any other result, same as touching fluids. Toxins, poison and the like are common. Sometimes that's what you'll want to make, sometimes that will be a failure of a potion you wanted to make, sometimes a potion that is so far unfinished and will heal anything when completed, but death while it's not completed."

The dwarf overlooked his student, pondering if his words were reaching him. "So tell me, how do you imagine going around that? How do you think you'd determine if a potion is done well or if it came out as a failure without touching or smelling it. Since after all sometimes it can look perfect, but be a failure. Don't rush with your answer. Think." With that the alchemist waited for an answer and hoped that this time he'd get a more appealing one. Otherwise dreams of his own alchemy lab would remain in his thoughts through the whole training.

[Korian]

Korian quickly walked over and grabbed an apron, putting it on before grabbing the gloves and returning to the where McGirdle was. He listened to the dwarfs question, and took a moment to think about an answer. He glanced around the room as he was thinking, his eyes falling on the many jars and vials of unknown substances. "Well, it seems to me that with all of these different chemicals and such, some of them may be used to test others. Maybe if it changes a different color or smokes or some other reaction, then you would know." Korian watched the dwarf for his reaction, hoping that his answer wasn't too ridiculous.

[Dragon]

"Yes that is one of the ways, however there are many more and more important ones. Usually you can't see or smell the difference. So it is best to know exact details of a certain potion. Most of what we'll be making will have failed options described. In fact all of the basic level potions we'll be able to recognize by sight if they are well made. Either the colour will be wrong, or it will have silt on the bottom or a chemical reaction won't happen. However on more advanced ones, you'd have to check by pouring a bit of the liquid onto something, or stirring a bit, or at worst trying it out on some rat. But you'll know that when you'll need to know it. For now it is important to know not to try the potion if you're not completely sure about it."

With that the dwarf told Korian to follow him a bit, and led him to a table where various vials, bottles, pestles, flasks and the like were held. Next to them were scales and weighs. A bit to the left was an oven. "Now I need you to tell me what these things are, how they work or what could be done with them. I'm sure you won't know all answers but try to guess or think of answers." Pointing to each of the items, the alchemist waited for his student to use his head again before giving out simple answers on a plate.

[Korian]

Korian listened carefully to the alchemists words, hoping to actually learn something and show the dwarf that he wasn't a complete dolt. Don't try the potion if you're not sure? Sounds like pretty good advice to me. He kept his thought to himself.

Following the dwarf around the lab, various items were pointed out and told to explain their purposes to his teacher. He looked first to the various containers: vials, flasks, bottles. "Well, the bottles and flasks and such would be used to hold the liguids." Then he glanced at the pestles. "And I would assume that those are for grinding things into powders. And the oven for heating up whatever needs heating. The scales for measuring out the amount of ingredients." There were plenty of other things there, but, it seemed that those items he listed were the majority.

[Dragon]

"Yes that is very true. Now the scales work a bit differently with liquid as you might guess. For yo can't just pour it over them. You have to put it in a container and then weight it. And a container will be extra weight. So for that you'll simply add a counter weight on the other side of the scale. One which weights as much as the liquid container. Do you understand?" The dwarf looked at this student wanting to be sure that everything he said was understood.

"Now this oven as you call it is actually a furnace. And it is, as you said, used to heat things, there are three different kinds of heating implements of this kind, or perhaps it is better to say that there are two different classifications of this. There is what you see here. A furnace. It is sealed on all sides as you can see. With an opening on the side, which is an opening for the bellows. Those can be used to increase the heat of flames, very handy in some cases." He stopped for a second and consider what he was saying."

"Now again the duality of the ovens. This is, as said, a furnace. Sometimes they have ducts, which are used for the cooling of sulphur. Which is handy throughout. The furnace of course is the advanced sort of oven, or heating device. The other is the fire pit. Which is usually just what it says. A pit with fire. It usually has a chimney and a place to put various objects which need to be heated, we'll get to that later. Of course, both would have a chimney as you see here, otherwise you might end up with a very smoke filled workshop. Something that is not desirable at all. Again is everything clear so far?" The dwarf kept a tight gaze on his student again watching his every expression.

"Now do you think heat is used a lot or quite rarely in alchemy?" Again it was with the questions, but apparently Korian was not going to get a chance to avoid them now or any time later. Such was the way that his teacher taught and he was quite willing to give even more questions in the future, perhaps even harder ones. Well, time would tell and it would tell soon enough.