Making the Metal of Potash - RPLOG
Participants
Date
9/5/477
Log
It's a nice day out, and the academy's alchemical section is slowly filling up with beings that are interested in the masterclass funded by Lady Longtail. The noble in question is currently rearing the day-staff, consisting of both full-time employees of the academy and several new hires for LongTech Industries. Security is arranged by the latter, while the prior are in charge of setups and demonstrations.
The lecture-room isn't quite full yet, but the benches are filling quite well by now, although neither Lady Longtail nor the esteemed mister Singewing have properly shown themselves yet.
Asher patters into the lecture hall, doing his best to take in the Academy. He had meant to go to the historical wing to see the display of "Dress Through the Ages" that he had heard about, but had been caught up in the crowd of students heading for a lecture! It was hard to go against the flow when you were less than three feet tall! "Well, since I'm here," the little corgi looks around and finds a vacant spot next to an immense Black Bear in scholar's robes. "Hello!" he says brightly, "Do you know what this lecture is about?"
The bear looks down and smiles at the tiny canine and puts a finger over his lips, then sits quietly watching the stage. "Oh," says Asher, "Sorry." He sits in silence with the large scholar, waiting for the lecture or demonstration or whatever was going on.
Cedric heard there would be yet another alchemist visiting from Cliffside, and he decided he just had to attend the class to see. At least this time it had apparently been organized and funded by someone somewhat reputable. Maybe he wouldn't have to go near Mossy Stone this time! Anyhow, the badger strolls into the lecture hall casually, dressed in a casual shirt and pants, and had brought some alchemy gear just in case they'd be doing any actual experiments. He looks around through the crowd, finding a sea of unfamiliar faces until he spots Asher and wanders over to sit next to him with a wave.
Jackson slowly makes his way through the Academy's ways, on his route to the alchemical section... The Collie no doubt getting a few strange glances as it's not often the sailor types make their way around to here. A few winks givin out generously to the females he passess before he makes his way into the room. His arms raising slightly before opening his coat to let Security see he was weaponless, before he moves to try and find a spot on the benches. "Well, this aught'a be a tad interesting."
From time to time, an elderly academic or two is guided towards a seat, not quite at the front row, but a little further back. In fact, the entire two front-rows are held vacant by security, for whatever reason they might have.
Soon enough, the seats are filling up, leaving only one or two spots at the back for late arrivals, and High Lady Flora Longtail arrives, wearing her fancy dress and smiling faintly, before coughing audibly to lessen the chatter among the beings that have gathered.
She waits a few minutes, coughs another few times, before finally continuing. "Yes... Welcome, yes. Flora has organized this day for any being interested in learning something about alchemy, or simply learning something new about the field. Flora will shortly explain what the plans for today are, because there are two options, yes... Firstly, Sir Singewing will be explaining about his recent research and the discoveries he's made, yes. Afterwards, there is a free lunch available for all beings currently present, and after that, there will be two separate practice-sessions."
The feline takes a short breath, before smiling lightly. "The first practice-session will be hosted and supervised by LongTech Industries, and will give a short introduction into the field. The second session will be headed by Sir Singewing, and those capable in alchemy will have a chance of reproducing his experiments, yes... However, since the reagents used in both experiments can be hazardous, Flora urges each and every being to follow the instructions from the supervision to the letter, yes. Thank you... Without further ado... Sir Boris Singewing," she murrs with a smile, moving off to a seat to the side as the owl in question is escorted to the lecture-stand.
"Hello, Cedric!" Asher calls out when he spots his badger friend, only to get SHUSHed by the big bear next to him. "Sorry," the corgi says, before turning to give Cedric a friendly smile as he takes his seat.
The little canine listens attentively, though he knows very little about the field of alchemy. His ears DO perk up noticeably at the mention of a free lunch, however. "Oh good," he says to Cedric, "This will be just fine than!" He realizes that this might not be the best thing to say in a room full of scholars and he corrects himself. "I mean, that there will be courses for beginners!" he says.
Cedric chuckles quietly at the tiny corgi after listening to the speech, and nods in agreement. The lunch part did sound really appealing to him as well. He cranes his neck a little, stretching to see past the head of the being in front of him as the cliffside owl-chemist takes the stage.
"Thank you, Milady," the old owl mumbles, before offering a smile towards the lecture-hall. "Well, let's start, shall we? I should say, it does an old man good to see so many new faces interested in alchemy, truly... I've been doing this for over twenty years, but it always delights me to see the young ones take an interest in the field," he admits with a smile, even as a liquid container with two large silvery metal balls and one smaller one is brought over.
"Now... This here... Is our potash-based metal... I should warn you all not to try this at home, since..." he begins, even as one of the assistants takes the smallest ball and drops it into a large container of water, quickly topping it with a pane of fire-retardant glass as embers fly everywhere.
"Look out!" Asher cries in reaction to the explosion on the stage, reaching for air magic to protect himself and those around him from the attack on the academy!
Then he realizes that it was part of the demonstration. He looks around sheepishly and returns to his seat. His ears burning pink at the stares of the scholars around him.
Also turns to stare at Asher curiously at the Corgi's reaction, lifting a brow in response and then after a few moments, he chuckles a little bit. He'd seen similar reactions before, and even aside from that, it wasn't really close to what could be done with a little fire magic. "You alright, Asher?" he asks the Corgi, before turning his attention nack to the stage.
"Ah, yes. Mister... Asher?" the owl mumbles as his eyes turn towards the corgi. "Don't worry, 'tis all part of the procedure... However... I could use a volunteer skilled with some air-magic for the next part. No complex spells, simply gently blow the oil from the sphere, and tell everyone what happens to it," he mumbles, gesturing at another small ball that was uncovered by the removal of the other two. "This metal has some... Interesting properties. For one, like gold, it doesn't rust in water, as you can see," he jokes, before the soft metal ball is placed on the stone table with a pair of tweezers. "Of course, unlike gold, it has a tendency to explode, and should be handled with care. Don't worry, it shouldn't explode just yet... Probably."
He turns to Cedric as well, smiling faintly, before he looks around the room. "I'll also need a fire-mage for the third demonstration... My skills lie in the manipulations of fluids, unfortunately, and as you can imagine, that is not... The most useful skill here."
Asher's ears practically glow with his embarrassment as the old owl points him out even more to the gathered audience. The little dog murmurs that he is fine to Cedric, then starts the long trot up to the stage. His embarrassment fades a little when faced with a task and he starts to carefully channel air math into a light breeze at the indicated metal. As he watches, the silvery metal starts to blacken as if it were burning. "Is it supposed to do that?" he asks nervously.
The badger nodded to Asher, "Yep. It's fascinating, right?" he answers, smiling to the Corgi before hearing the lecturer's call for a volunteer. Fire math... well, Cedric would probably be okay with doing a little bit of that, and so he nodded to the owl as he rose from his seat, raising his arm to volunteer. It didn't hurt that the owl reminded him of his adoptive grandfather a little bit... though mostly by merit of being a cliffside owl. He didn't honestly look very similar to gramps other than that. "I'm fairly practiced in fire maths, I think I could be of some help." he says, raising the volume of his voice slightly to be heard through the lecture hall, and looks down at Asher with a rub of his chin, saying "You should come up too. You're good with air math, right?" before making his way to the aisle leading to the stage, mumbling various 'excuse me's' and 'pardon's' as he works his way past several beings sitting there. His gear isn't quite up to standard for alchemical experimentation, but at least he'd thought to wear a long, belted ranger's jacket to protect his skin and fur just a bit.
Lina does a half twirl into the room before she stumbles and laughs to herself, looking slightly embarassed and straightening up when she sees the group all standing about, her clad in her longtech leathers and emblem. She hasn't intended them to see that, and pauses for a moment before waving to them all. "Hi, I'm Lina, nice to meet you. I'm wearing a uniform and I'm here to learn." she says in an attempt to explain why she is so happy, before moving over towards Lady Longtail and taking up observation.
A cough leaves Flora's muzzle as she looks towards Lina, before the owl smiles. "I see... Well, dear, unfortunately, you missed the explosion... Don't worry, though. There's ample time to learn!" the owl rebutes, smiling towards Flora and then back to Lina.
"And indeed, mister Asher. The metal is supposed to turn black, much like copper rusts green, and iron turns brown during prolonged exposure to water or air. Now, I wouldn't recommend touching the metal with your bare hands, since we don't know much about its toxicity yet, but considering it explodes in water, ingestion would be a bad thing. However... During this process, we can observe that the temperature of the metal goes up. Does anyone want to venture a guess as to what this means? Miss Lina, perhaps?" he offers, slicing off two small slices of the metal and putting it in a sealed petri-dish. "Would you mind passing this around the group so everyone can get a good look?" he asks the corgi with a smile, before turning to Cedric. "I propose we wait with the last demonstration until everyone's seen the metal, and miss Lina has offered us an answer to my question. What I want you to do," he mumbles, using a piece of cloth to clean off the last chunk, before gently placing the chunk on a slightly hollowed brick... "Is to set this little block on fire, slowly. It'll melt before you reach that point, that's quite alright."
Lina ponders and ponders the question, the cough unsettling but not detering her as she thinks. "It gets wet and it blows up? So... and it gets hotter when it does that?" she asks as she puzzles the question, hoping it the right one. "So... the water makes the metal hot and bothered, causing a reaction that ultimately upsets the metal enough that it has nothing to do but lash out violently?" She asks as she moves to help with the showing of samples.
Asher has little idea what the scholarly owl is talking about, but he nods and takes the petri dish and trots down to the first row of academics. He looks carefully at the covered bit of burnt substance. What sort of magic could make metal burn in water? "Here you go," he says, passing the dish to a serious looking crane. He smiles a bit at Lina's answer, it sounded like as good an explanation as any to the little canine.
Cedric doesn't know much more about this than Lina, but nodding to the owl after hers, he adds his own comment... in a very teacher's-pet and competitive manner he learned from his time in Cliffside. "Well... it's becoming something else and giving off energy because of that, isn't it?" he asks, before looking towards the chunk on the hollowed brick. He extends his palm towards it, preparing to the fire magic to heat up the chunk of metal slowly once instructed to.
As the petri-dish moves around the lecture-room, an occasional ooh is heard, and occasionally, one or two beings ask a short question about the hardness of the material, the melting-point, and so on, each of them hushed with a simple statement of "we'll get to that" from the owl.
"Now, miss Lina... As much as I'd love to find a sentient metal, I don't think that's the case," he offers, still smiling encouragingly. "What I think is happening, like Mister Asher was worried about, I think... Is that the metal slowly burns in air. Most of the students I've shown this to, they ask me the same question, because, except for the actual fire, everything points in that direction!" he exclaims with a clap, before gesturing Lina over. "I think you'll want to see this one, miss Lina! You look like the kind that can appreciate this. WHenever you're ready, mister... ?" he finally offers to Cedric, gesturing Asher over as well.
"As a note to the rest of the beings gathered, much as you'd want me to divulge into the methods of preparation right away, this... This is the way you get the young'uns interested in alchemy... For any questions about the theoretical basis, feel free to ask me during the lunchbreak, or after the practical session, which should show you exactly how to prepare your metal of potash, in any case."
Cedric performs the right calculations in his mind, immediately forgetting them afterwards as he enters the exact state needed to produce enough flame and heat to light the metal. It burns for a short period of time, the fire not the usual color of fire but a bright magenta instead. After it appears to be done, he quickly stops his spell and relaxes. "Like that?" he asks, wondering if he did it correctly.
Asher retrieves the covered dish from the last scholar at the back of the hall and trots back to the stage at the owl's call. "Um," he hesitates at the edge of the stage, watching the strangely colored fire magic at work, "Is it going to explode again?" The little canine scoots forward cautiously, still holding the dish in his hands. "It's just, I would like to have a little warning this time," he chuckles nervously.
Lina gawks at the pretty fire, not quite enwrapped in the idea of living metal but the beautiful show that was being put on. "That's really cool!" she exclaims decidedly, half reaching to touch it while it is active before she stops herself. "So you can make more colors? You could do a burning show! I just don't know how much money it would cost." she says as she flicks her tail about. "That was really neat!"
