Taste Test

[Inoadar]

19th of Winter, 512

Inoadar was still pondering the events of the previous day when he reached his poison crafting shop. It was not as though he had performed some crafty drama to sway anyone's decision. It seemed the decision had already been made. He had simply sat for several bells, waiting to be interrogated. He was certain that the poison, the 'Lost Tongue', he had inflicted on the Nykan had worn off. Under the best circumstances it might last for two bells, tops.

He had made his odd request, wanting to act as though he was so innocent as to be oblivious as to how far he was pushing his luck. He had been shocked when the Ebonstryfe officers had made mention of the dead Nykan. He had spent so much time in the detention area, he knew the poison would have worn off and the Nykan could tell all about him. The bounty on his head here and in Nyka. The faked death. His true identity, not the "Nolan Parnell" for which he had stolen citizenship papers.

He had made a supreme effort not to show his shock, of course. He assumed they were covertly watching for his reaction. He simply acted as any legitimate, loyal citizen would act upon hearing that a foreigner had assaulted a citizen of Ravok. The Nykan had been executed. It was to be expected, why should it be a surprise?

And, as a crafter of antidotes for poisons, it stood to reason he would request of sample of affected tissue to do tests and research on. The fact was, there was no real falsehood in that statement, except of course that it was the poisons, not the antidotes, that were his primary product. This made the request that much easier to say without a betraying sign of tension.

And they had granted his request. They had cut out the dead Nykan's tongue and bagged it for him. After all, it was a poison that primarily affected the tongue, so it only made sense.

He unlocked the door of his shop and lit the lamps, going into the back and getting his gear ready for tissue testing. He took some lab alcohol and sterilized a spot on the table, setting the tongue there. It was still swollen, which meant the soldiers had killed the Nykan well before they had brought Inoadar down to have their odd, short talk with him.

On closer exam, he realized the swelling was not consistent, nor was it the only pertinent change to the normal physiology of the tongue. It was mostly only the edges that were affected this way. They were not only swollen, they were rigid. There was also a large spot in the back center with this same characteristic. The rest of the tongue was not unaffected either, but rather than swollen and rigid, it was unnaturally flaccid. it no longer had the feel of muscle tissue, it was more like fat.

He considered what effect that would have. It made sense. The edges being rigid prevented articulation, especially when combined with the swelling, which would reduce the available leeway for movement. Then, with the breakdown of muscle tissue, there would be insufficient strength for the owner to overcome the resistance of the swollen, rigid areas.

It would be like having your tongue swell up and turn to wood around the edges and turn to pudding in the middle. 'Yeah, that would definitely inhibit speech.' Inoadar mused to himself. So the trick was to see what was different about the two different parts of the same muscle to cause such radically different affects.

[Inoadar]

Even with the stump cauterized, the effects of most toxins would break down and the flesh would resume normal consistency. So it appeared that it took the normal flow of blood to complete the cycle of this toxin. Not that it mattered to a dead man whether he could speak or not, but it mattered to Inoadar to find out what internal systems triggered, spread and ultimately broke down poisons. This would serve to perfect the performance of antidotes and poisons alike.

He went again to his poison crafter's kit, lifting a small device he liked to call a 'sparkler'. It wasn't one of the initial items, but it was where he kept it. It had a small plate of copper, bent at 90 degrees. There was a small pad of thick felt, perhaps 4 inches across and 1 inch thick, with silk tightly drawn and stitched to the back side. This same side was secured with rivets to the copper plate. There was an axle that went through the center to avail a second silk-covered felt pad to be turned by a handle. The axle was short, so that the second pad, when attached upon the axle and secured to the handle, was held snug against the first. When turned, the friction of the two silk pads generated static electricity.

There were copper leads coming from both the pad secured to the plate, and attached to the rotating pad. The lead on the turning pad came into contact with leads spaced evenly around its circumference, attached to a second copper plate, which was attached to the base in such a way as to avoid contact with the first plate. As the pad was turned, the static was given to flow into copper strips connected, in this case, to opposite ends of the tongue.

The tongue made barely perceptible twitches as Inoadar turned the wheel. He kept at it for a good half bell before the ooze began to seep from the swollen areas. By the time his arm was exhausted, the tongue looked fairly normal. It appeared that the same discharge that had affected the sides to swell and stiffen, had also pooled in the central locations to alter the consistency there. There was now quite a bit of it in small puddles around the tongue and pooled on its surface.

He wiped up the thick liquid, collecting it in one of the new unused vials and labeled it. It would probably have no useful purpose, but you never knew. He felt wetness on the side of his hand. He was about to wipe it off, but decided to leave it. 'Science requires Sacrifice' he thought to himself, realizing this may be the quickest way to see if the discharged liquid had any practical quality to it.

But for now, he cut into the side and center of the tongue and compared the tissue under what magnification he could achieve. He looked forward to the day he could afford a truly master level lab. It was his understanding that they came with a device that achieved a tremendously higher level of magnification than the simple hand-held, paired-lens device he currently had.

But even this crude device showed considerable differences. the center was like true muscle tissue, where the sides were more like thick layers of skin, complete with odd bubbled looking pores. He was certainly aware that the tongue had a primary part in the sense of taste, and he wondered if that's what these were. That would explain why it responded differently than the muscle-like tissue of the center.

He looked again at the wet spot on the side of his hand. It also, obviously, was skin. Yes, he would definitely leave the liquid there and see what it did.

[Inoadar]

For now, though, he wanted to do some comparisons. He sliced several cross sections of the tongue, as though he was slicing bread. He got vials of all the poisons he currently stocked that were introduced to the body through wounding. He separated the ones with physically debilitating effects from the others.

Even though the 'Lost Tongue' poison that had affected this tongue was introduced through inhalation, it was not like most inhalation type poisons. They were inhaled into the lungs and, from there, into the bloodstream, thereby being distributed throughout the body to inflict what affects they were designed to do. Perhaps they reacted TO the blood to catalyze their effects. Perhaps the blood simply carried them to the body parts with the necessary components or chemistry to cause the proper reaction.

Now, with the 'Lost Tongue' there was undoubtedly some cycling back to the tongue from blood flow. Even though the toxin would be spread by the blood, it was only the tongue that was affected. So it had to be that odd skin-like tissue with its peculiar bubbled pores that were the target. Most was applied during inhalation, but any that bypassed the tongue then would cycle back to maintain the effect.

'Good Enough' Inoadar thought to himself. It was not really understanding of the nature of that one reaction he sought. It seemed like an allergy, like a severe skin rash, seeing as the affected tissue was like skin. Then also there was swelling and discharge, also allergy-related symptoms. He knew there had been developments in treatments for allergies. Serums to suppress the reaction or lessen the results of it. Perhaps he would see if an antidote to 'Lost Tongue' could be created using such chemistry.

Then again, he already had an antiTOXIN for 'Lost Tongue'. Not as good as an antidote, it still would pretty much counter the effects once you took it. While an antidote would prevent the effects altogether. It would make sense to break down and analyze the antitoxin and see if some of these new allergy-suppressing chemicals were present.

'Maybe later' he thought, with a mental wave of dismissal. That could wait. For now he wanted to run some tests on the muscle tissue. He took the tissue sample slices and applied a poison to it. A poison of a type that caused physical weakness. He wanted to see if the toxin immediately affected the tissue or if there was no immediate reaction.

The purpose was to determine if the toxin's reaction required nothing more than contact or if there was a deeper physiological requirement. If there was immediate reaction, swelling, drying, breakdown of structure, whatever, then it would indicate the toxin simply worked locally on the flesh itself and distribution only spread the effect.

The spreading of the effect would also weaken its impact overall. These would probably be the cheaper poisons. He made notes of which ones had this characteristic. There were some that he already knew would not show any effect. Ones that affected hearing or thinking. They had nothing to do with muscle tissue. He hadn't even brought these out. he was most interested in the physically-based toxins that showed no immediate effect on the muscle tissue.

He made notes of them. They would take more in-depth testing.

[Inoadar]

He attached the leads from the 'sparkler' to some of the poisoned tissue samples that showed no immediate effect. Some still had no effect. He assumed these to be ones that affected nerves or tendons, or even bones. Others, however, responded upon the pulses of light static current. This would give the poison time to spread further than the local kind. Also it would steadily grow in effect as the target continued to use the affected muscles. A trace amount reaching the heart could be potentially deadly.

In a fight, the first type of poison result would have a quick effect on a wounded arm or leg, probably causing swelling or loosening of the muscle structure, bringing about weakness or clumsiness, but only where hit. You'd need to hit every place you wanted affected individually. And even then, the effects, though debilitating, would manifest in full quickly, and the target could adjust accordingly.

The second types would be more difficult to adjust to, as the effects would continue to grow in intensity and in the number of locations. The effects might be slower to show, but would build up to be much more debilitating overall than the first type. Inoadar made notes of all these findings.

He was running out of tissue samples. That was okay, though. He had made considerable strides in determining the best methods of application, the best anatomical points to strike and the best choice of poison per situation. The remaining poison types were all of the more expensive varieties he stocked. No doubt these were types that had the greatest impact due to reacting only to crucial systems in the body.

The skeletal system, with its adjoining tendons, ligaments and sinew would be devastating to have crippled by poisons. It could have lasting impact on health by corrupting the marrow, in addition to the predictable structural detriments of having muscle and bone connections weakened or destroyed. If the ribcage weakened, a person could pierce a lung just by falling down.

Then, there were the ones that infiltrate the nervous system. Increased sensitivity to pain would be the least damaging effect, but would certainly slow a fighter to a fatal degree. Numbing of the nerves would probably bring on severe coordination problems. With the greatest threat being outright shutdown of vital organs. These poisons would affect the entire body.

He made notes on which poisons he had not yet tested and added notes to obtain some joint and bone samples for those future tests, along with a few rats or birds, or even monkeys. 'Maybe I could buy a few Kelvic slaves without having my identity papers come under too much scrutiny.' he mused, scratching his hand absently.

AS he put his gear away, he found himself scratching his hand with surprising frequency. He realized the spot he was scratching was where he'd left the discharged liquid from the tongue to soak in. It was now stiff like a callus and had small sores forming around its perimeter.

Where most people would be distressed to find such a thing developing, Inoadar grinned with what he deemed a small triumph. He had hoped that disgusting liquid would have some effect. "Another subject of future testing." he crowed quietly.

[Cataclysm]

Inoadar :

Experience

• Poison: 5 XP
• Observation: 4 XP

Lore Earned

• Ebonstryfe do things their own way
  Naming your tools
  What horrors we inflict ourselves in the name of science
  Poison: Difference between an antidote and an antitoxin
  Poison: What happens if you poison the skeletal system
  Poison: What happens if you poison the nervous system
  Kelvics are not friends they are test subjects.

You know I was jokingly going to add that you earned a new snack from your last thread. However I did not think you would be using said snack for another thread. Absolutely riveting and in the same way off putting Great thread! You've earned the poison points. Extra 100 intimidation points against me

Safety comes in the oddest forms

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.