Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]

[Raithen]

2nd Ash, 122

The Avialae man walked through the bright afternoon sunshine as though he were a part of it, whistling a marching song to himself and thinking of very little beyond his quest for the day. He would be heading out into the wilds soon, his first contract was already assigned and he wanted to make sure he was prepared for whatever came of it.

Rai was of a comfortable disposition that tended to make due more with what was at hand than spend over-long in the planning, still, some preparation was due. After asking about he'd learned of several shops where poisons and other concoctions intended to do harm or near-harm could be obtained. The first one he'd gone to had been very large, with multiple attendants running about and a very fat head merchant sat upon a stool shouting at all of them out of what seemed to Raithen an enjoyment of the practice. He'd only stayed in the shop a moment before being swarmed by several of said attendants and ducking out with all due haste.

He was now approaching the second and liked the looks of it much better. It was small and seemed to be filled with bottles, drying herbs and sachets of gods only knew what all over. It smelled right too, he decided, as he ducked into the shady interior; like tea and spices with other, more dangerous scents lingering beneath.

"Hello!" He called cheerfully as he caught sight of what he assumed was the proprietress.

"A good afternoon to you, ma'am. I'd like some poison, if you have any. Along with whatever else you might have that will keep my skin whole in the face of unspeakable horrors, please." His cheerful tone did not change as he made this request, in fact, if anything he looked even brighter and cheerier for it.

[Hilana Chenzira]

One thing had to be said, in Sweet Remedies, there was rarely a dull moment. Even with the smoke blowing everywhere from Mount Sorokyn, and people passing in and out of the herbalism shoppe… there were countless visitors and patients that made their way in and braved the sulphuric horror for the second day in a row. Still, the volcano had not yet rumbled or exploded; so they might make it out of this.

Or, perhaps, it was just going to be tomorrow.

She was sitting at one of the large tables of the shop, a heavy ceramic bowl in front of her along with a mortar and pestle. Hilana was alternating between weighing out and measuring ingredients for the anti-bacterial tonic and grinding more when the little brass bell over the door chimed, alerting the Vastii to the presence of a new visitor. She looked up, already smiling in welcome, and her eyes found the Avialae. She had heard stories of such a people, though she had yet to see one or meet one herself. An Avialae that spoke Vastian? Well, now. You learned something new every day. She slid easily off the stool. “Salve, sir. Welcome to Sweet Remedies,” she greeted him, coming around the table, the hems of her blue tiered skirt sweeping the floor. She inclined her head politely, straightening up once again.

As he made his request, Hilana managed not to laugh at his cheerful manner. She found that she quite liked it, and it resonated with her, since that was her usual way, too. For the first time since she had came last season, someone had quite happily requested something very few did. Poisons. It was something so few talked about, the fact that the herbalists, healers, could use those same skills to compose the opposite results: death. Usually, when someone wanted something in that vein, it was quite hushed. But this Avialae… “We have plenty,” she assured him. “Is there a certain type you’re looking for? Fast acting? A paralytic? Flesh-eating…?” She offered a couple of options. And like him, she was quite sunny about it. Poisons, after all, could be just about anything. The sky was the limit, and when one mixed in venom… she really did need to get her hands on those snakes.

[Raithen]

The woman who was the sole occupant of the shop, other than himself, returned his greeting with a similar level of cheer, which was promising. That she was currently elbows deep, so to speak, in the work of creating something with all sorts of interesting looking ingredients spread out over the table she was working at was more promising still. When she wasn't at all taken aback by his open request of deadly substances it sealed the deal.

Raithen was dressed as normal for him, a thin chiton that fell to just above his knees, this one was sleeved and of a fabric that even the prude-est of grandmothers wouldn't call sheer. He was out trying to do business, after all, however hot it was out. Ash was literally blowing over everything from the active volcano that existed inside the city but, modesty first. His cloak was more of a cape, only coming to mid-back and cut specially not to get in the way of his wings.

He pondered, turning in a slow circle as though there would be a shelf in the shop labeled 'Poisons' with descriptions of each. When this did not prove the case he ran a hand through the hair at the back of his neck and gave the shop owner a sheepish smile,

"Well, I'm not sure, actually. I'm signed on with one of the mercenary bands that had taken a contract to protect the outer villages and I was looking for things that would help with that."

Here he pulled a pouch off his belt, but, rather than coins, it contained slivers of metal about the size of an adult person's finger. They came to sharp points at both ends and were otherwise smooth. plucking a few out he held them in his open palm and then pulled aether through his Rune of Kinetics to make them float above it. He rotated them, giving a good view before letting them fall back.

"I use my Rune to shoot these at... whatever is trying to attack me. Mostly I think killing whatever Mist spawned beast is causing trouble as quickly as possible would be the most human option, but I'm happy to hear about what else you have on offer. I'm Raithen, by the way."

Here he tried to hold out his hand to shake, realized it was still full of projectiles and quickly shoved them back into the bag before re-offering the hand.

[Hilana Chenzira]

While a number of the jars that lined the shelves on all of the walls of the building were labeled, they were only of raw ingredients. In this case, it was a precaution against theft. If someone didn’t know what they were after, that made it much harder to find amongst the fairly vast inventory of the cozy, aromatic shop. The sheepish smile was answered with the Vastii’s own sunny countenance as she listened as he explained a bit more as to what he was after, and Hilana found herself nodding in understanding. That did clarify things and help narrow it down.

“That is very good of you to go out there,” she told him. “Those villages can certainly use the assistance,” Hilana did wonder which ones he was going to; because it might have been some of those that she was familiar with. “Especially after the Mists of last season.” While they had dispersed from the city… the Atraxian Expanse was a whole other can of worms, and some of those smaller towns…

At the demonstration, though, the girl looked delighted, her head tilting as the razor-sharp pieces hovered above his hand. That was brilliant. As small as they were, if he could move them quickly… combined with the right, well, coatings, any hit could become lethal. They didn’t have to sink in deep, they just had to cut. And if he had enough of them… Hilana was impressed. “That is amazing,” she sounded approving. “Definitely fast-acting, then. I think that a paralytic would be helpful, since that way it will at least stop the moving of your target while the poison takes effect.” An anticoagulant probably wouldn’t be quite as helpful here, since it was just lead to whatever monstrosity bleeding out, and that wasn’t a particularly humane way to go while the poison set in…

When he offered his hand to shake, Hilana was trying to figure out a way to accept it with the projectiles there until he put them away. She chuckled and shook his hand. “I am Hilana, Raithen. It is a pleasure to meet you.” She smiled up at him before she released her hand and went to a side shelf, her skirt hanging off of her hips. She crouched down, her eyes roaming the bottles before she gathered four of them. Three of them were a deep emerald green, and the fourth bottle was blue. She straightened up again and set them on the table. “These three are the poison,” she told him. “It’s a bit thick, but I think that that will help since it will stick properly when you’re moving your… what do you call them? Your blades?” She indicated the pouch he had returned them to. “And this one is the antidote for it. Just as a failsafe,” she added, moving the blue bottle away from the three green ones on the table. “Better to have it and not need it, especially when you’re going out so far. Those villages usually do have a herbalist attached to them, but seconds count when you’re dealing with a poison like this. You also said you were interested in restoratives?”

[Raithen]

He nodded along to the conversation, pleased at the praise and agreeing with the knowledge that the villages were in need of protection, now more than ever.

"Fast acting sounds like a good idea. Paralytic could be useful in cases where killing isn't needed too."

Light eyes followed her as she made her way around her shop, while he repeated her name,

"Hilana." And then nodded, as though he liked the way it felt in his mouth and approved. When she proffered the bottles he looked at them without touching. "Are the green ones all the same? What do they do?"

When he had answers to the first two questions he said, "What would happen if you drank it? Or got it on your skin?"

He was full of questions and each time they were answered he came up with more, "Is the poison as effective dry as wet? Should I dip them just before I fight or leave them out over night?" He walked around as he spoke, examining the bundles of hanging herbs, sniffing at them and obviously trying hard to keep himself for touching, just in case. Even thus distracted he was listening keenly, making mental note of the instructions for the use of what he was purchasing.

"If I poison myself, should I apply the antidote to the wound or drink it?"

When his queries were exhausted he nodded and smiled and said,

"Do you have anything to help if I get myself into trouble that isn't poisoning? Or if I am poisoned by something more generally?" He wasn't sure if she was an herbalist only or if Alchemical options were within her purview as well. If not he could find magical concoctions elsewhere but he was already of the opinion that he would prefer to do his business in Sweet Remedies if possible.

[Hilana Chenzira]

“The green ones are the same,” Hilana agreed. “They are a combination of poison and paralytic. So by treating your weapons with these, when you strike your target, the first thing that happens is their body will stiffen up because it causes the muscles to seize,” she explained, making her joints appear to lock and rocked back and forth, as stiff as a plank of wood to demonstrate before relaxing to her normal stance. “As it goes to the bloodstream, that affects the heart and the other organs, like the lungs, and when they can’t move either, that is the end of the target. How fast it works depends on how deep the wound is and how close to an artery you hit them,” she added.

“If someone was to drink it, they’re not going to make it very long or very far. They would be gone in minutes if they got a good mouthful of it. Their bodies would just shut down. This one isn’t very subtle when it is ingested,” the Vastii admitted. “If you just got some on your skin, but not in a cut, I have a solution here that will clean that up and take care of it, and you should have no ill effects. But if you scratch yourself and then get some of the poison in it… then just go right to having a drink of the antidote. Don’t worry about rinsing it out first, good mouthful of the blue bottle.” She explained. “That counteracts everything. Then you can take the cleansing solution to the wound.”

She liked his questions. Not many people ever actually asked for so much information; perhaps because all they wanted to know was whether or not it worked, and didn’t really have the foresight to think everything might not go according to plan. But despite the grisly nature of topic, Hilana was still cheerful. “Now, if you want it to paralyze, but not kill…” she retrieved a purple bottle. “This one is the same poison as the green bottle, except it has an additive already in it to neutralize it a bit. So this way it will not attack the organs, it will just paralyze them for several hours to several days. You can just redose them if they start moving before you want them to.”

She was thoughtful as he asked about the efficiency. “Due to the viscosity of the poison, it is still quite effective once it dries, because it is thick enough to coat and stay on. But you could always reapply just before you start, but I don’t think it would be necessary… and I know in a combat situation, you don’t always have that opportunity. Even if you can make them float that way and pass them through the poison… seconds count, right?” Hilana smiled brightly at him, watching his progress around the plants and walls. High up overhead attached to multiple racks were even more plants of all kinds, gathered in bundles and in various stages of the drying process.

“Now for restoratives… I’ve got a couple different ones. This one is my favourite. It is applied topically and uses plants that grow where the wild Wyvern ranges are in the mountains… called the star thistle. Very, very powerful plant for disinfecting and helping to speed up the healing process. I do have to warn you that it does sting a bit when you use it, though,” Hilana looked a bit apologetic at that. “But it burns out anything in the wound and it will close it up cleanly.” Even if scars told the stories of how your life was lived.

“For general poisons, that gets a bit more challenging, especially with the composition,” Hilana scooped up a stool, carrying it over to a shelf and setting it down, climbing up on it. “Since it could use venom, or it might just be plants… but you’re mostly expecting to be fighting creatures? More likely than not, antivenin.” She searched the bottles, checking a couple of them before finding the one she wanted and bouncing lightly from the stool, her skirts flouncing before she landed and came back to the table. “This one works by purifying your blood, since I don’t think you’re going to run into a cobra or an asp in your endeavours, but even if you did, it should prove helpful. Most venom works the same way in that it attacks something, but they can attack different things. Some act as an anticoagulant, so your blood can’t clot right. Some attack tissue, like your skin and muscle. And some attack your nervous system, so basically everything that tells your body how to operate,” she tapped her temple to indicate the brain. “Once they’re in your blood, then they can attack their target. So if you can purify your bloodstream, then you can at least minimize the damage that it’s doing. The best way to use it is by injection, but if you’ve no medical training, then you can just swallow it.”

[Raithen]

The explanations he got to his questions were detailed and explicit, which is exactly what he'd been wanting. Having spent the last few years in a military setting he was used to being given short, simple answers often barked at him like he shouldn't be asking them to begin with.

When Hilana hopped up on a stool he moved instinctively as though he were going to hold his hands out to steady her but his conscious mind caught up just in time to remember that he'd just met this person and they might not appreciate a random customer getting handsy. Still, he stood a little closer than was strictly professional distance with his wings a little spread as though a part of him thought he might need to take flight at any moment. His hands hovered a little above waist height for him and stayed there till Hilana hopped down with the confidence of a person who had done so a thousand times.

When her explanation of the healing drought was finished he looked down at the neat little array of bottles on the table and then back up at her. He pointed to each one in turn, repeating a shorter version of her lessons to make sure he had all of them straight in his head. When he got it right he nodded to himself, looked thoughtful for a moment and then said,

"Is there anything else I should buy? I'm heading into the deeper desert and this is all I could think of that a herbalist shop had that I would need but you know a lot more about it than I do." The fact that he had decided to trust her with his needs and his coin was obvious. A bad person in the same situation could have sold him bottles filled with spring water and told him it was elixir of life.

[Hilana Chenzira]

When he came closer when she was on the stool, Hilana found that she did not mind. There were some people that had no business being within range, and after an interaction like this she generally had a bit of a feel for them. But Raithen’s easy-going and cheerful attitude had her very much at ease and quite relaxed. While her guard was usually up at some level outside the shop, even after a season in Solunarium, the Avaialae had gone right through it. Wildness knew, and she trusted that instinct implicitly.

While he was getting the bottles and their contents organized in his head, Hilana listened and would not interrupt unless there was a gentle correction to make, mostly nodding along in affirmation. Poison. Paralytic. Antidote. Cleansing. Restoratives. He was a quick student and had a mind for detail, she could see... which was a good thing considering the assortment lined up in front of him. While there were labels on the differently-coloured bottles to help differentiate between them and their contents, not many of the details she had given him verbally were listed on them. Safety precautions and plausible deniability for the owner, in case they were ever investigated with such things on their person.

When he mentioned the deep desert and other supplies, Hilana knew just the thing. He wasn’t Vastii, after all, and while her people could go days without water even in the punishing heat... that wasn’t normal. Others would simply die. And she didn’t want that to happen to him. “Deep desert, I would imagine you’ll be leaving the River on your travels to the villages, right?” her big brown eyes were back on him. “Then you will want waterweed.” She headed to one of the glass jars off to the right side, bringing it back to him and the table before getting a waxed canvas pouch. The contents of the jar looked like dried dark green seaweed with multiple fronds on it, not unlike the piles that sometimes found their way to the shores of the River and the beaches.

“What this does,” she told him as she opened the jar, opening the pouch and placing a handful of the jar’s contents in it, “is rehydrate you for if you run out of water. We cure it with salt and it is very rich in other nutrients, so that way it will stave off cramps and muscle pain. It looks funny, and it doesn’t seem to be anything special, but it is probably one of the most important plants in Atraxia.” She picked up one of the pieces from the jar. “So, if you should run out of water, you’ll pull off about this much,” Hilana demonstrated, using her fingers to pinch and pull off a section of the dried plant that was perhaps half the length of his thumb, “and eat it. It’s a bit chewy, but it will keep you going for quite a while without water.” She popped the piece in her mouth, and broke off another piece for him, offering it to Raithen as she chewed. If he decided to trust her and try it, after a few moments of chewing, he would find himself quite refreshed, as if he’d just had a tall glass of water. This certainly wasn’t as showy as someone who would claim they had the Elixir of Life itself, but this was a girl who was concerned for his well-being out there, and she wasn’t about to steer him wrong.

“Now, I’m going to tell you what I tell everyone who I give waterweed to, is do not trust the plants you find on the shores if you don’t know what they are. Waterweed has an imposter that grows in the exact same places, and it looks very similar. The differences in their appearances are really, really small,” she was solemn for all of her earlier cheerfulness. “That one is called hydrilla, and a lot of people will mistake it for waterweed... so they eat it. And hydrilla is a horrible way to go. Because it will kill you without the right treatment, and quickly. So no foraging for it unless you've got a botanist with you that knows the two of them,” she was right back to smiling again now that she had delivered her warning.

[Raithen]

Raithen had heard of waterweed but hadn't had the need to use it before then. It didn't look very appetizing but he wasn't a picky eater after years in one military establishment or another. So, when she offered, he popped the piece into his mouth. It was salty and chewy with a green flavor, like a vegetable version of jerky.

"Huh." He said, around still trying to chew through the weed. "S'not bad."

After a few minutes he managed to swallow and, surprisingly, he did feel like he'd had a drink. "Oh. Wow, that's amazing!"

He beamed at her before almost launching into a new set of questions about the care of the weed. Would it go bad, did it need special storage, would it fully dry out if left in the sun, and if so, would it be useless? His attention was immediately distracted by her mini-lecture about the dangers of imposter weeds. Nodding with equal solemnity he promised not to go looking for the weed on his own. No plans to do so had entered his head to begin with. For all that he spent a lot of his time with more common people then his blood might suggest, he'd never wanted for money and not had is provided in excess, so the idea of doing the job himself had never occurred.

"I won't try and find it on my own, I promise. Sell me as much as will keep for the weeks I'm gone, you never know what might happen." With his ability to fly, if they were stranded far from water he could fly to find it, and if he couldn't, he could at least fly high enough to not be over-heated, but no there was only one other Avialae in the merc group and he doubted the man would be accompanying the party setting out for the outer villages.

When he seemed like she believed him he did ask his questions about the waterweed.

[Hilana Chenzira]

She was satisfied by his reassurances to the matter. She just didn’t want to take a chance, especially since she didn’t know him and hadn’t encountered him before today – which was a pity, really – but better safe than sorry. Some people saw the masses and piles of seaweeds on the shores and thought they knew what they were getting into, and it was oftentimes a desperate gamble. She’d rather the energetic, upbeat Avialae not end up with the wrong thing by accident. “Thank you. There have been a number of people, even nomads that I’ve known, that thought they had picked up waterweed… and that wasn’t what they had. I just don’t want anything like that to happen to you,” Hilana smiled at him.

The fact that he could probably fly high and fast in pursuit of water hadn’t even occurred to her, truth be told. She just knew that too much heat and not enough water lead to dehydration, which led to muscle cramps, which logically translated to her that he wouldn’t be flying if his muscles were wracked with cramps and seizing. That condition could be solved by waterweed, and then he could carry on. But still…
 
“Now, it won’t go bad. It’s dried out, so it will last for years. This pouch is waxed, so it’s protected, and you can just stick it in a backpack or a belt pouch and it will be fine,” the girl told him cheerfully. “This is as dry as it gets, surprisingly, so even if you left it in the sun for the next season, this is the same texture that it will have,” she was grinning. “It’s been curing for quite a while already. If it gets wet, it will rehydrate somewhat after an extended period, and it gets a bit chewier, but unless you keep it submerged for a couple of days, it won’t lose all of its salt. Even if it does get wet, it will still be fine… it just gets harder to chew and it can smell a bit briny until you dry it out again,” Hilana explained.

Something struck her, then, and she tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “Do you have sunscreen? I admit I don’t know if Avialae get sunburn or not, but that might be another thing to think about.”