Experimentation (Solo)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

29th Day of Summer, 512 AV Tock wanted to learn how to turn things to stone. It was the main reason she had signed up for alchemy classes to begin with. She had a stone statue at home that had once been a living, breathing person. Some unknown alchemist had transformed the man to stone in an instant. The man had been in the middle of drawing his sword, in the middle of taking a step, unable to complete those actions when his entire physical structure was changed, turning him into the perfect statue. So life-like that it appeared as if he was still somehow alive, trapped inside the stone. Captured in greater detail than the finest stonecarver could duplicate. That kind of power was something Tock wanted. Of course, she knew that she was a long ways from being able to accomplish something like that. But she wanted to start experimenting on getting the basics down. Seeing if she could maybe get an idea how to begin, in order to have something to build off of later. She had been in alchemy classes for a few weeks now, learning the basic principles. Today she was staying late after class had ended, with the help of one of the student teachers who were there to assist students in the learning process. Her name was Mina, and she was a brunette girl a few years older than Tock, working her way up with the hopes of one day becoming a full professor. "So what's first?" Mina asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the table. She was testing Tock on what she'd been learning in class, to make sure she was properly committing everything to memory. "Loading... nah, Glyphs," Tock replied. She received a nod, and grabbed a small jar of black paint to start Glyphing the doorway. She looked it over, hesitating, not sure where to begin. "The Djed flow needs to be contained and steady," Mina reminded her. "Aye," Tock replied with a nod. "Guiding Glyphs fer ta keep 'er flowin', an' barriers ta keep the Djed from bleedin' off..." This part, at least, she was familiar with from her Animation work. The layout was inevitably a bit different. There was only a single circle here (and it was mounted vertically). Uncertain what the standard method was, she used some of the same geometric principles she used in her Animation circles. Balance and precision, she had found, helped make the Glyphs work better and keep the Djed flow smoother and more controllable. With this in mind, she measured out two overlapping equilateral triangles, in the form of a six pointed star. On the tips of one, on the outer rim of the vertical ring, she painted three barrier Glyphs. On the tips of the other, on the inner rim, she painted three.guiding Glyphs. Thus when following the ring all the way around, the Glyphs alternated: barrier on the outside, guide on the inside, barrier on the outside, and so forth. When this was done, Mina opened a book to show her two Glyphs Tock wasn't familiar with. The page denoted them as 'reaction' Glyphs. Mina pointed to the keystones on either side of the ring and said, "These go here, and here." Tock nodded and copied the runes carefully, making sure to get the details right since she wasn't as familiar with these. When the setup was done, Mina looked it over, finally giving her a nod. "Now is time for the loading," she said.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"So what chargers are you using?" Mina asked. Tock pulled out her bag and dug into it for the items she'd brought. On the small pedestal in the center of the ring she placed a flower; she'd plucked several from a neighbor's yard on her way to school today. In the Fount compartment at the top of the ring, she placed a handful of small pebbles she'd collected. And in the Filter compartment at the bottom, she placed a handful of loose dirt. Mina looked the selection over curiously, and asked, "What sort of reaction are you expecting?" Tock frowned, having the feeling she was already doing something wrong. "I wanna turn the flower ta stone," she said. She didn't expect it to fully work the first time... even if she got the formula right, she knew there was a level of skill needed to properly control the reaction. But this was just practice. "And how will it work?" Mina asked. Her tone implied she was testing Tock. Like she already knew whether this would succeed or fail, and was trying to see if Tock herself knew. Tock didn't like being tested. With a bit of a scowl, she said, "I's put the rockiness from the pebbles inta the flower..." "And the dirt?" Mina asked. "Ta take the dirtiness outta the rocks so I git a clean stone flower..." Mina covered her mouth with her hand, seeming to suppress a laugh. Tock frowned. "What?" she asked. Mina just shook her head and said, "Nothing. Go ahead. Give it a try..." Tock looked the setup over again. The girl's reaction was telling her that this wasn't going to work. But she wasn't sure why, and it seemed like she was going to have to figure it out the hard way. She sighed and gave a shrug, figuring that learning hands on was the best method. She wrote down some notes about the setup, along with a crude formula: flower + rocks - dirt = clean stone flower? Already anticipating failure, but refusing to give up without trying, she slid her dagger across her palm to draw a small bit of blood, and laid her hand on the keystone, beginning the new and unfamiliar process.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The flow of Djed she sensed through the ring was a very different experience. In Animation, the Djed flow was linear and fixed. Energy flowed from the Source to the Destination, pouring into the construct and stopping there, filling it with new knowledge. There was no return energy, and the connection between the linked circles was only one-way. With this, the energy began flowing through the ring steadily, looping back on itself again and again. It was such a different experience that she found it hard to control. It was like the difference between learning to run and learning to dance. Both used your feet, but the movements were fundamentally different. She focused her concentration as hard as she could, trying to keep the flow steady. She didn't understand what she was feeling in the Djed flow, so she couldn't grasp whether it was working properly or not. She was used to sensing knowledge moving from one point to another, but there was nothing like that here. This was more raw. Primordial. Elemental. It was all she could do to hold on. When her head started spinning from trying to control the flow, and energy was bleeding off through the ring faster than she could keep track, she clumsily guided it inwards and pulled her hand away. Then with a pair of tongs she dunked the flower, or what remained of it, into a nearby bucket of water. Multicolored energy weaves flowed from it, the bucket letting off a shimmering steam as the Djed was absorbed. Once the reaction ended, she pulled her 'creation' out and laid it on the table. She looked down at it and frowned. "Ain't..." she muttered, poking at it with the tongs, "quite what I thought..." The flower had been reduced to a mottled grey mush. The stem was a pockmarked array of grays and greens, looking a bit like a toad's back. The structure was brittle, and flaky, reminding her somewhat of old, nasty, dried oatmeal. When she poked it, it broke apart, letting off a bit of a strange smell. "What did you do wrong?" Mina asked her. Tock turned a scowl on the girl. No doubt, she knew exactly what Tock had done wrong. But she was going to be a pain about it, and not explain it unless Tock could figure it out on her own. "Jus' need more practice controllin' 'er..." she muttered. She leaned in to scan the flower, channeling Djed through her eyes to read its aura. The aura, too, was mottled and ugly, looking like something she might have thrown up after drinking too much. There was still a bit of a tinge of green throughout it, as was normal for plants, as well as some cold grey, which she knew would be expected from stone. But there was no melding of the two. Instead of mixing together, the energies and been mushed together sloppily. Sighing, she cut off the Djed flow and shoved the flower's remains into a lead-lined waste bucket filled with water. The water would contain the Djed as the flower continued to break down. She dumped the stones from the Fount in there as well. They had been robbed of their hardness and color, leaving them looking somewhat like white balls of sand. The dirt from the filter had hardened and solidified, which... confused her. When Mina saw her staring at the dry, hardened little clumps of dirt, she asked, "Why do you think that happened?" Tock tilted her head to the side, considering it. She didn't have an answer. So she tried scanning the dirt's aura, pushing Djed through her eyes again until the second sight expanded in her vision. It showed signs of the stone's aura, cold gray mixed throughout the brown aura of the dirt. She cut off the Djed flow and thought about that. "S'filterin' out..." she said, thinking out loud, "somma the 'ardness o' the stone..." Maybe that was why the flower had grown flaky instead of solidifying. The dirt, while softer than the stone, still had part of the same 'solid' properties. Thus the dirt had filtered those out, taking away some solidity while allowing some of the hardness to pass through. The result was hard, but brittle flakes. "Try it with no filter," Mina suggested. "Sometimes you can add without needing to take anything away. See how that works for you..." Tock dumped the rest of the waste into the water bucket, and set it in the back in a containment bin for safety. Then she reloaded the ring with another of the flowers she'd plucked and another handful of pebbles. Hopefully she would have better luck this time.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Hand bloodied once more, Tock touched the keystone and began the process again. The Djed began to flow, and she had just a slightly better idea what to expect this time. She focused hard on the ring, concentrating on keeping it steady, letting the cycle build up slowly. As the cycles continued, the energy became harder to control, taking more and more focus. She wasn't used to this kind of speed. With Animation, it was easier for her to control the flow. But the Djed spinning through the ring now felt like it kept moving faster and faster, as if tumbling downhill, and her meager strength couldn't halt the pull of gravity. All too soon, it got to be more than she could control, and she had to step back, activating the target and ending the process. Once more she dunked the flower in a clean water bucket, watching the colorful smoke fill the air, much like it did when she was Magecrafting. When the energy expenditure settled, she pulled the flower out and examined it. Once more it was mottled grey, though at least this time it wasn't flaky and crumbling. But she didn't understand what she had to do differently. "When your skill is lacking, extra steps can help with the process," Mina suggested. Tock looked at her and arched an eyebrow. "Whaddya mean?" she asked. "What do you think I mean?" Tock huffed, and turned her attention back to the flower. She channeled Djed through her eyes, studying it, trying to get a feel for the energy inside in order to better understand what to do next. The unstable aura expanded in her vision, mottled greens and greys floating in her side. She needed to get a more complete mixture. The aura was showing her that the properties of the stone weren't fully merging with the flower. Instead of spotted patches of green and grey, she needed it to merge fully into a greenish-grey blend. Except even knowing what she wanted the end result to be, she didn't know how to GET it there. Sighing, she cut off the Djed flow and recorded notes on the process. Then she leaned on the table, watching the flower and the ring, trying to puzzle out how to improve the process.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock spent some time flipping through books, taking notes and sorting through the problem. Finally she came up with a possible idea. She wrote out a brief summary of what she had so far: Flower (F) + Rocks (R) = Partially Petrified Flower (PPF) She then considered the apparent properties of the item she'd designated as PPF. It was gray, showing it had absorbed some of the color of the stone. But the flower didn't appear to be any harder. It didn't seem to have any of the physical properties of stone. So she theorized that anything currently in the PPF was nothing more than useless miscellaneous traits. She didn't need to worry, for now at least, about the color change. So perhaps if she used the PPF as a filter for the second round, it would block any useless traits from entering the next mixture. So she came up with a new forumla: F + R - PPF = PPF2 She handed the page to Mina and said, "Does the same thing 'gain, 'cept this time, block the useless stuff from the first round. Second round should be... more pure?" Mina looked it over, gave a nod, and said, "Give it a try..." Growing frustrated at the student teacher's lack of useful input, Tock reloaded a new set of materials into the ring. Another fresh flower, another new set of rocks, and the PPF placed in the filter slot. If her theory had any grounding to it, the filter would allow her to channel the more pure qualities of the stone into the new flower. It would clear out the 'junk' she didn't need, the junk that had been all she could channel into the first attempt, and leave room for better energy to reach the flower. She began round three, placing hand to keystone once more. Once again the Djed flow proved difficult to control. It was quickly becoming clear to her that this was something that was going to need practice, practice, and more practice. But it wasn't just about the alchemist's skill, and it wasn't just about the items used. She needed to learn how to master both formula and technique. When the cycle once more reached the point that she couldn't control the flow any longer, she activated it, cooled down the new flower, and laid it out alongside the previous attempt. Strangely, or perhaps not, there were almost no visible signs of change. The flower wasn't discolored, and at first she thought it was nothing more than a complete failure. But when she began examining the auras of each flower, she saw the same sort of mottled mixture in the new attempt as in the previous one. That meant that some of the properties of stone had been transferred into the flower. The problem was, her skill at aura reading was too poor to be able to pick up the specific differences. She settled on mundane examination instead. She poked at the flower and pinched the petals. They felt stiff. Not quite stiff like stone, but perhaps on the way there. Gaining some of the hardness she wanted for complete petrification, but still incomplete. It was just a question of which aspect she was failing in: her skill, her formulas, or both. Still, it was progress, and it was a learning experience. She recorded both sets of results, trying to puzzle out what the next step would be: F + R = PPF (Properties = discoloration) F + R - PPF = PPF2 (Properties = partial hardening)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Out of lab time for the day, Tock took her notes and the results of her experiments home, planning to study them some more and hope for some sort of epiphany. Other than simply practicing more, she was stumped as to what to do next. When she became more skilled, she would probably be able to channel a more pure Djed flow, and direct more of the desired properties into her target. But that would take time, and many many sessions working the ring. Meanwhile she'd see if she could find a way to do something different with the formulas. When she got home, she settled at her table, looking around the cramped, cluttered little cottage and swearing for the umpteenth time that she needed to get a bigger place. One with a proper workbench, and room for all of her babies to roam. As she started going over some possible formulas, she felt one of her babies pawing at her leg. She knew without looking that it was Bitey; he had a distinct touch that she easily recognized. She scooped him into her lap and whispered, "Ya wanna sit wit' Mommy? 'Elp wit' my home work?" She lifted him up to kiss his little glass eyes, then let him settle into her lap, wooden legs curled beneath him. She stroked his back gently as she worked, theorizing about different combinations, different ways to search out the results she wanted. As the hours passed, she grew frustrated. It seemed so simple and straightforward. She should be able to just channel the stone into the flower, and bam, that would be it. But lacking the skill to pull that off, the only alternative was to try and deduce a more finesseful solution. She thought about the day she'd made Bitey. How she'd channeled everything it meant to be a spider from the critter she'd dubbed 'Goldie' into his mechanical frame. Though she was sadly aware he was lacking certain key things to make him a true spider. He couldn't climb walls. Couldn't spin a web. She had vague ideas that alchemy could help her overcome some of those issues, but until she developed some better idea what she was doing, there wasn't much she could do. Her baby would remain incomplete.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Thinking about Bitey, and his being 'incomplete,' got Tock thinking about what it meant to be 'complete.' She leaned back in her chair, shifting her baby to rest against her chest. He perched there on his wooden legs, staring at her with his round glass eyes. He shifted around slowly, legs probing each step for support, until he crouched down in the new position, as if lying in wait. Complete or not, he was a spider. He had the body and the mind, even if some of the more delicate aspects were lacking. As she stared into his eyes, fingers stroking his wooden body, she considered what it meant. How much 'stone' did she technically need to put into a living thing, in order for the process to be 'complete'? Enough to kill it. And enough to preserve the body against rotting. That gave her an idea for her next experiment. She wouldn't be able to use a flower... there was no clear way to test if he flower was still alive or dead. But with a small animal, or maybe a bug... she could find out how much transformation the creature could survive before it died. That would be an excellent start... Of course, she highly doubted such an experiment would be allowed at the Uni. Maybe she could do it at home... She returned to her notes, laying out the steps she'd need to test in this experiment. She'd need multiple specimens. Some to keep alive. Some to try and turn to stone. And some to kill through other means, so she could track the rate of decay and compare if the petrified ones were being at all preserved. She'd also need some proper lab equipment... glass jars to hold specimens in, a workbench to operate on, some compartmented shelves to store them in. She drew up a list of what she'd need, and got ready to do some shopping...

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Once she had a list drawn up, Tock looked around the room, and realized there was just no way she was going to fit all of this in her tiny cottage. She'd need to expand. Build a nice, proper magic lab. She needed more room for her Animation projects, anyway. She wanted to start Animating bigger things, and that meant more space for bigger circles, and ideally something more permanent than chalk drawings on the floor. Given her lack of space and resources, these more elaborate, long-term experiments would have to wait. This was the sort of thing that would need a lot of time, patience, and planning. So in the meanwhile, she just needed to figure out a more simple, immediate solution to her current questions. Something that would give her some useful information for the later experiments. So it was back to her formulas, trying to puzzle out some elaborate way to mix this and that, working through different arrangements, cresting flowcharts if different substances that might, just maybe, offer the combination she needed. Finally frustrated beyond belief, she threw her quill down and hugged Bitey to her chest once more. "What's Mommy doin' wrong?" she asked him, looking down into his eyes. "Hmm? Can ya tell me?" The simple-minded creature just shifted his position, disturbed from his rest when she had hugged him. He settled back in, shifting his legs until he was sure of his balance, then laying in wait once more. She giggled, finding him adorable, and continued petting him. "Yer lucky Mommy didn't make ya smarter," she told him in a tone of affection. "Must be nice, not 'avin' ta worry 'bout 'is stuff. Jus' gots it simple. Jus' a spider..." She stared at him for a moment, the gears in her head turning. Finally, something clicked. "Oy!" she called out, moaning and slapping a hand against her face. "Mommy's an idiot!" She sat back up, disturbing Bitey once more, the mechanical spider struggling to maintain his balance on her lap. She grabbed her notes, the sheer simplicity of it finally hitting her: F + R = PPF (Partial hardness) PPF + R = PPF2 (Increased hardness) PPF2 + R = PPF3 (Even more hardness) ... PPF(N) +R = PPF(N + 1) She had been banging her head against complex formulas for the whole day, trying to figure out how to add this, subtract that, filter this, modify that... But all she wanted to do was turn something to stone. So, if she kept applying the same repeated formula, as many times as it took, she should be able to increase the rockiness of the target more and more with each stage. It was all just a matter of how many cycles it would take.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The next class session, she stayed late again to make use of the lab time. Once the rest of the students cleared out after class, she immediately set to work, setting up one of the alchemy rings with another freshly picked flower and a handful of rocks. She took her time repainting the necessary Glyphs, using the same configuration as the first day. She didn't want to mess around with changing the setup until she had a better idea what she was doing and what the effect would be. With the Glyphs in place, and no filter used, she sliced her palm and touched the keystone, beginning the Djed flow. Once again the energies began spinning through the ring, and she focused her mind on containing them inside and keeping them on track. Any wasted energy that escaped the ring meant less transformation of the final product, and more cycles until she got what she wanted. As the energy accelerated she tried to hold on as long as she could, until Djed started escaping the ring and she had to release it. She dunked the first version of the flower into a bucket of water, and recorded notes on the process, including how long she'd been able to maintain control of the ring. Then she pulled the flower out and scanned its aura, taking note of the coloration, shade, and density. Once she had all the information, she placed it back in the ring for another round, dumping the Djed-expended rocks out and replacing them with a fresh handful. She began the process anew, repeating the same cycle, and channeling more of the stones' properties into the partially petrified flower. With repeat processes, she was slowly able to learn how to better maintain control, though only marginally. The Djed flowed a bit faster than the first time, achieving a more pure state, before she channeled it into the target and activated it. She cooled it down once more, recorded the results of both the process and the aura reading, and reset the ring to try again. She continued this way for a couple of hours, always resetting the ring with the same flower as the target, and continually changing out the rocks with fresh pieces. Repeating the process over and over got her a lot more practice at controlling the Djed, and while her technique was still highly amateurish, she was at least starting to feel like she understood the concept now. After multiple cycles, each long and difficult, each only pushing the change a small step along the way, she finally had the result she'd been looking for. It was brittle, and the aura still showed some signs of mottled colors indicating an incomplete mixture, but it was a good start. A stone flower, captured in the form it had borne when recently plucked, and she hoped, preserved so that it wouldn't wither. At least, not until the alchemical changes broke down, however long that might be. It was a far cry from being able to turn a person to stone, and she needed to learn how to do it instantaneously, if she wanted to duplicate the statue in her house. Of course, she also realized now that this sort of alchemy couldn't be responsible for that thug's death; there was no way he'd been dragged into a ring and held there while he underwent the changes. Someone had devised a way to prepare the effect in advance, and make it portable. Uncertain how to even begin going about something like that, she took the petrified flower, and headed to the library for some more studies on Glyphing. Maybe she'd find some answers there.