Science and Magic

[Clopin]

March 8th | Closed to Varian. 

The slightest hint of vapor rose from the narrow nozzle of a flask suspended above the wooden table, as the gypsy king turned towards the next step in his "process". His gaze fell onto the blood red stone that sat nearby in a dish, as the last and final part of the process.

"Almost there, just another drop here..." Clopin muttered to himself, as he held a eyedropper over another flask as delicately as possible.

The door slowly pushed open as a golden canine slipped in with ease, approaching the king slowly. Clopin already knew who it was, but he appreciated Virgil's sense of caution when it came to him messing with various chemicals.

"Yes Virgil?" Clopin asked.
"Ah...mon roi, if I'm not mistaken, I think you might be just the slightest bit late to meet with your apprentice. I know you assigned a few other Shadowkeepers, but--"
"Is he outside?"
"Yes, he's been waiting pretty patiently, but he looks nervous." Virgil said.
"There is no need for him to be nervous! I know for a fact that anyone would be excited to have an audience with the King!" Clopin said, nearly knocking over a few flasks in his excitement. Virgil's ears pinned back, biting his tongue as Clopin rushed past him and into the main hallway.

"Ah! Varian! Just in time. Come in, come in, there's nothing to be afraid of!" Clopin said, with a playful tone to his voice. He wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders, gently guiding him back into the study.

"I apologize for being a little late. You see, I was attempting to make gold again, but by Mahomet's beard, I don't quite remember what the trick was that allowed me to do it last time, so I've been experimenting." Clopin said, inspecting one of the flasks that was filled halfway to the top with an electric blue liquid.

"Any ideas?" he asked, turning his attention back to the boy.

[Varian]

It was hard to day if he considered himself settled in or not, he had friends here, people he trusted and felt safe around. But he was also far from home, from his own found little family, and he often found himself wondering where they were and what they were up to. He was glad at least that under the wing of people like Shanty and Clopin he'd learned a lot, honed the skills he already had, it was something that would inevitably benefit him in the long run.

But he still got a bit nervous anytime he knew he was going to have one-on-one time with the King, it was less because he was wary of Clopin himself, and more because of his own shady past with royalty, he was pretty sure the king and queen of Corona still wanted his head, or at least wanted him jailed.

He stood up more straight when the King appeared and addressed him, but he couldn't help the undignified little sound of being startled, "Y-your Majesty!" He said in an almost squeak, until the King draped an arm around his shoulder and he relaxed a little. There was something fatherly in the gesture, at least to him, and that was another reason he'd ended up putting so much trust in the King, though he'd never admit that.

"O-oh! Well there is hardly a poor time to experiment!" He said with a grin, coming to join him looking over his table littered with bubbling things and steaming vials. Seeing this set up really cemented how little he knew about the more refined kind of alchemy that the King employed. Most of his own recipes were home brewed and rough, and he liked them that way, everything he did had a unique flair that only he could put on something, but he had to give credit where it was do.

On the topic of making gold however, Varian was grasping at straws, and at his own knowledge of the things he'd read and observed, "uh, well admittedly I've never deeply researched the process," he laughed, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck a little bashfully, "but hmm," he rubbed at his chin, looking over the available components, gingerly picking things up, smelling them, it took a concentrated effort to deny the urge to take a more oral approach at figuring this out, but eventually he pointed out his best guess, "maybe this?"

[Clopin]

The gypsy king peered over Varian towards the object he was pointing at. Inside the metal pot sat what looked like liquid silver, but with the viscosity of water.
To the naked eye, it did look like melted down silver, but to the trained alchemist, he knew exactly what that metal was.

Mercury.

Of course! How had he forgotten it? He pinched the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes for a brief moment, before exhaling raggedly.
He then shifted his gaze to Varian, giving the boy a tired smile.

"I swear, this war has me forgetting so many things, I can barely keep up with it sometimes." Clopin said, as he brought the pot over to an empty space that seemed perfectly fit for it, nestled next to the flask with the electric blue liquid, and the Philosopher's Stone itself, sitting comfortably in the dish he had provided for it.

"But don't tell anybody, that stays between you and I. Because if they knew, my entire image would be ruined. And we simply can't have that!" Clopin exclaimed, holding up his index finger. He then quickly rearranged the mercury, the liquid, and the stone, before turning his attention back to his apprentice.

"Now then, if you would hand me that book over there, the one with the dark leather cover, we can get started." Clopin said, pointing towards a book with yellowed pages that sat open to a page on the table opposite him.
The leather that wrapped around the cover was worn, aged with the winds of time, and of traveling to different places of different climate.

He recalled his days of travel, of learning to perform such miracles as creating gold out of thin air from a fellow gypsy who sold his alchemy to a little known city in South America. The book contained his writings on the subject, and the exact formula of what it took to make gold.

What most everyone didn't know was that it took just a tad bit of a magic spell to really get things going.

[Varian]

Varian gave a sort of dismissive shrug to Clopin's exasperated remark, he couldn't really speak on the point of forgetting things frequently, being that he tended to be a trite scatterbrained most days. You'd have your head on right if you slept more. He could already hear the scolding words, words he tended to firmly ignore, "phft don't even worry about it, my memory is so scattered sometimes it's a wonder I remember to eat," he said, then made a face, "well...That is a poor example I suppose." He admitted, because he did, quite frequently, forget to eat.

He watched the king's movements with interest before he was commanded to fetch the book, nodding and looking around before he spotted the requested tome, bringing it back with a curious expression, "I've always wondered how this was done," he said, before his expression brightened with the realization that he was about to see what few alchemist saw, "lets get to it!" He chirped, snapping his goggles over his eyes as he waited in anticipation.

[Clopin]

Clopin couldn't help but chuckle at the boy's excited movements, before he turned back to the small pedestal that he had set the book on. He flipped it open to a dog eared page, which contained a detailed set of beautifully handwritten instructions.

"Now then," Clopin began, as he untied the twine from a small package, "we start with the lead."

He placed the lead with the philosopher's stone in the golden saucer where it sat, and then he moved on to pour in the mercury, then the electric clue liquid. The mixture caused a thick red substance to ooze out of the crimson stone, almost as if it was bleeding, but it had a strange waxy texture to it, as it mixed with the mercury and the blue liquid.

"And now, here is where the chrysopoeia happens, dear boy." Clopin said, with a mischevious grin. He turned back to the leatherbound tome, and read the spell aloud.

"Vinculis tamquam lapidi huic metallo
Proprietates sic et illud, dabit aureum."

The mixture of the liquids rose enough to completely cover the lead, causing a blindingly bright light to come from the small saucer. For a brief moment, Clopin worried that it hadn't worked, until the light dimmed, and with it, the strange waxy substance coming from the philosopher's stone receded back into its depths.

In place of the lead sat a solid hunk of gold.

"The real secret to alchemy, dear Varian, is a little bit of magic." Clopin said, as he held the hunk of gold out to the boy.