A Puppeteer in Tirel (Solo)

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I had to leave Corone.

I was left with no choice.

I had pissed off too many people. Many powerful, powerful people in many powerful, powerful places. Not places of traditional power--nothing like high-ranking government officials, or Ixian Knights, or what have you... But people who happen to run dangerous cults. People who can spin a strand of your hair or an absentmindedly-clipped fingernail into an effigy of you, which they can then use to inflict physical harm upon you, or curse you, or offer your soul to their long-forgotten liege.

People that, no matter how many I killed, always seemed to come back in the flesh of another pawn controlled by their unseen masters.

I had to leave Corone. But where would I go?

I consulted with my new... friends in the Order of Crimson Hands. I was confident that they would protect me and the knowledge I was able to provide them. But what if more than a couple of cultists came knocking on my door? What if something worse was after me? What if my family had decided to stop by for dinner and a murder?

I had to leave Corone.

After a short discussion, I pitched to them that I would be a great asset to the Order in Salvar. They agreed. The very next morning, I gathered my few remaining things, met up with my assistant Nell, and we left Radasanth without looking back.

-~-*-*-~-

Tirel.

According to the scraps of information and bits of books I was able to poke through on the ship ride here from Corone, the city in the Gulf of Scales would probably be the best place for me to start my new life in this harsh country. Tirel itself was a relatively big city, founded by Coronian merchants several centuries ago before they were quickly routed by the Salvar government. In the time that had passed since then, they didn't do a bad job building the place up and shaping it into the bustling little port city where, thanks to its eastern location, merchant had easy access to good from all across Althanas.

That, and because of its rather southern location in regards to the rest of the country, it was able to escape the reputation of cold, harsh weather that the majority of the country is infamous for.

The city itself was agreeable enough, being a sprawling collection of brick buildings with little Salvic design touches here and there, arranged in a fashion that made it easy to navigate from one point to another. The populace was a hodgepodge of various cultures from around Althanas. You had your Salvar natives, hearty and strong, as well as a sizable community of dark elves from Alerar and high elf refugee clusters who decided that going back to their post-Corpse War Raiaera wasn't worth the effort. Also, you had plenty of merchants and military personnel alike; for not only was Tirel a bustling economic port for Salvar, but it was the scene of a growing naval presence on Salvar's eastern borders.

Of course, you always have the presence of the Church of the Ethereal Sway to contend with--and seeing some of the things I tend to practice and experiment with in my ample spare time, perhaps Salvar wasn't the safest place to be. Raiaera's still rebuilding, with a few whispers on the wind saying that Alerar was preparing to invade their war-torn neighbor. Scara Brae's small, slightly isolated, and a bit too weird for my tastes. Dheathain's dangerous, for other reasons (not to mention I utterly despise the humid tropical heat). Fallien is, well, Fallien. So, by default, I had to relocate to Salvar.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

It hadn't taken terribly long for Nell and I to find an apartment in the northern end of the port city. It wasn't anything terribly special; a single bedroom job with a small washroom, kitchen area, and living room. The first week we were in town, we decided to go exploring. We hit up the shopping squares, taking survey of what tools, ingredients, spare parts, and alchemical materials were available for purchase. Most of what I wanted to pick up, however, was rather hard to obtain. As it turns out, the majority of the shopkeepers in Tirel who peddle such wares are wary of the watchful eye of the Church of the Ethereal Sway's agents in the city heavily frown upon such transactions, as such materials could be used to practice the magical arts and witchcraft that they hate oh-so-very-much.

Before the week was out, I had a small tinkering and alchemy lab set up in the living room. I allowed Nell to have the privacy of the bedroom as her own personal space, and opted to sleep on the thinly-padded couch that sat against a wall in the apartment living room. I was able to tap a couple of my Corone merchant contacts in order to secure myself an adequate toolbox and collection of alchemy apparatuses in order to start anew on my research as I settled in to my new life in Salvar.

I was informed by carrier raven that I would be using a good chunk of free time researching and preparing various potions and poisons for The Order of the Crimson Hands. The letter mentioned that conflict was brewing, and that I had a duty to help our forces prepare for when that day came. I immediately set to work, devising various recipes to begin brewing, and doing the math to decide how much of each of the innumerable ingredients it would take I would need.

There would be poisons to cloud the mind and destroy the body, and potions that would do the opposite. I had a short amount of time in which to prepare, which didn't give me enough opportunities to explore my new surroundings.

But that's why we have assistants, right?

Nell was my eyes and ears around Tirel. She was a bumbling sweetheart, but a lot smarter than she gives herself credit for. She's proven invaluable to me in the past, and I was happy to have her along my journey. I sent her out into the city for shopping trips, and she would return with bits of information and messages from my superiors while I was wrists-deep in bitterwort and poison dart frog venom.

It was a month or so after our arrival that Nell came home later than usual. I was expecting her to return in the early afternoon with another order of ingredients. The sun had set hours ago, and I had decided to pass the time by tinkering with a small mechanical spider made from a few pieces of scrap metal I had lying around.

The door opened softly, and my assistant walked into the dimly-lit apartment. She had a half-worried, half-excited look on her face, and was walking a bit quickly and erratically, which was very unlike her normal calm, collected, and slow self. “You're late,” I commented, looking up from my little project.

“I know, I know,” she said breathlessly. “It's just that... Wow... Uh... Oh, here you are, Maddy. The stuff you asked for. Earlier today. Here you go.” I set down the miniature screwdriver I was using to attach one of the spider's legs to its rusty bronze abdomen and took the canvas satchel from her, undoing the clasp and inspecting its contents. Even by the low light of the oil lamps I had lit in the room, everything seemed to be in order. Glass jars and vials were marked in thin, painted letters and elegantly-written calligraphy on paper tags.

“Thank you, dear,” I said with a smile. I walked over to my work table and began carefully taking the containers out of the satchel. Their contents sloshed and clinked about as I rearranged the glassware into rows and columns on the right side of the table, away from the oil lamp I used to illuminate my workspace.

Nell coughed. “There's, uh, something else, as well, Maddy...”

I looked over my shoulder quizzically. I didn't remember writing down anything out of the ordinary on my shopping list for today. “What is it, Nell?”

“I don't know. I think you better just see it for yourself...”

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

The blonde knelt down onto the wooden floor of the apartment, gingerly setting down the second canvas bag she had slung over her shoulder. She slowly undid the leather knots and pulled the covering flap open. Leaning in closer, she cooed, “It's okay, you can come out. You're safe here.”

A small, thin, hairy brown leg poked itself out from the dark confines of the bag. After a couple seconds, a second one appeared. Then a third, and a fourth. And then, I saw four little beady black eyes, a set of hairy fangs, and then the rest of the spider. It was a tarantula. Plain and brown was its body, with dark orange fur wrapping its joints. The thing had to have been a good six inches from one hairy end to the other. It slowly crawled along the floor, looking around, taking in its surroundings.

Then, I noticed the numerous spindly strands that appeared to be growing out of its body. They reminded me of little pieces of coral bursting out of the spider's exoskeleton. At their base, the strands were blue, and they faded into a dark, mesmerizing purplish hue towards the top. It looked like some sort of fungus, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what kind. Cordyceps, perhaps? But it was unlike any other strain I had seen before in my studies. It closely resembled the small, twisted fungal spikes and knots that would grow from within their hosts and burst

I knelt down close to the giant spider to get a closer look. Creepy crawlies like lizards, bugs, and spiders never bothered me; clearly, this thing wasn't afraid of humans in turn. It took two skittering steps closer to me, and regarded me curiously.

Nell glanced up from her little surprise. “So what do you think it is, Maddy?”

I racked my brain for an answer. “I don't know. I think it calls for a bit of research and experimentation, because I don't recall anything in my studies about fungus of this kind of coloring.” I placed my metal hand palm up on the floor. I was now pretty certain that it was cordyceps—perhaps a new strain, heretofore undiscovered and undocumented?

The spider inched closer to investigate, tentatively feeling my hand with its front legs. My assistant leaned in close to it, and said in a cheery tone, “It's alright, little guy! She won't hurt you, you can climb onto her!”

It immediately stepped onto my hand and parked its ass in the middle of my palm. I studied it further with a curious glance as it stared me down with its little beady eyes. I stood up and looked at Nell, who had this weird little smirk on her face. “Cool, isn't it?”

“I'm not sure what to think right now. You didn't touch it with your hands, right?” She shook her head.

I continued my questions. “Where did you find it?”

“It was digging around in an alley for something, I don't know what. It approached me from a distance, and started following me around town for a bit.” Nell got up off the floor and plopped her ample behind down on the leather couch behind her with a huff. “I was a bit terrified at first--I mean, who wouldn't be, when they find themselves stalked around town at sunset by a giant mutant spider and all. But I yelled at it to go away, and it did.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Just like that?”

She nodded slowly, then continued, “Yeah. But then I felt bad for screaming at it, so I wanted to apologize.” Ahh, youth. “I followed it into the alleyway, and told it that I wasn't going to hurt it, and that it was perfectly safe around me. And then it came out of hiding from behind some garbage. Then I told it to climb into my bag, that I wanted it to meet someone—by that I meant you, of course—and wouldn't you know it, the little guy just crawled up my leg and into my other bag that I brought with me.”

“Weren't you scared?”

“Oh, utterly horrified, Maddy. But I didn't want to make any sudden movements and scare the spider too, you know?”

I smiled, and looked down to see that the spider had positioned itself to be facing Nell, seemingly enthralled by the retelling of the events that brought it to our apartment. “Tell you what I think,” I said. “I'm pretty certain that this is some new strain of cordyceps. I say new because, well, most of the time cordyceps just turns its insect host into zombified husks that exist only to travel somewhere to die and release the spores of the next generation. But this one, curiously enough, seems to have allowed the host to retain its higher brain functioning--and perhaps even amplified it somewhat. You said it followed your every command to the letter?”

She put a finger on her chin in thought. Then, her bright blue eyes lit up. “Why, yes! It did, didn't it?”

“Very interesting, indeed. I think it calls for some research. Who knows, we might have found something new here!” I moved towards my work bench, sliding my left hand into a clean leather work glove. I picked up a set of small tweezers as well. As I moved the instrument to break off a strand of the fungus, the spider whipped around on the palm of my hand, raised its front legs high in the air, and then leaped in the air with tremendous speed. It landed on my glove with a soft pop, and then bit down. Its fangs didn't puncture the material of my glove, but that didn't stop him from trying!

“Shit!” I gasped in surprise and jumped back a bit, because that's a perfectly normal human reaction for when a spider leaps at you and all. The tarantula dropped to the floor, and I instinctively raised a foot into the air. Nell shot up from the chair and put a hand up in front of her. “Madison, no, don't--!”

Out of sheer instinct, I brought my foot down. The bastard wasn't fast enough, and its life came to a sudden, crunchy end underneath the heel of my boot. Bits of fungus shattered like glass off his body, and spread out a few inches around my feet. One leg that was poking out from underneath twitched once or twice, then slowly started curling up.

I glanced at Nell, a slight snarl curling my upper lip. She stood there, mouth agape, saying nothing.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Minutes after the tarantula's untimely demise, I began collecting the biggest bits of fungus that riddled the floor and put them into an empty glass jar for safekeeping. Luckily, my foot had come down at an angle that ended up snapping off several of the twisted rods at the base, allowing me to salvage a good few specimens for analysis. I scooped up the thing's remains, reassured a stuttering Nell that I was alright and that she wasn't in trouble, and unceremoniously dumped the crushed spider into a small trash bin near my work table.

First thing in the morning, after breakfast and a bath and coming up with a list of things for Nell to do (strictly forbidding her to undertake side quests involving friendly arachnids), I gathered the jar full of the blue and oily purple fungus and set out into the streets of Tirel for a little scientific investigation of my own.

The late-morning sun hung overhead in the cloudless skies. A brisk early summer wind blew through the streets of the port city, sending a slight chill through me as I adjusted the tie and shirt collar of my black business ensemble. All around me, I could hear the chatter of various cultures as they mixed, joked, and bartered with one another as I made my way through the cobblestone and dirt streets towards my destination.

I turned down an alleyway, making sure to avoid stepping in any offal, and came to a stop in front of a wooden door that led into a windowless dirty brick building. A small wooden sign hung above the doorway read “Morendale's Alchemy”. I knocked twice, gave a quick pause, then knocked a third time before turning the doorknob and entering the store.

(I was told on my third day here that the knock pattern was used by customers to signal that they were indeed not members of the Church coming to shut the place down and burn the merchant's inventory to ashes.)

The interior of Morendale's was nearly as dimly-lit as my work area back in my apartment. Several oil lamps hung from the ceiling, illuminating a poorly laid out inventory. Several tiers of shelves lined all four walls, chock-full of various powders, plants, poisons, and potions. A haphazard maze of glass cases and tables in the middle of the floor were the homes of various alchemy apparatuses, all of which I presumed were there thanks to the Corone merchants who were kind enough to offer supplies to the various other merchants in Tirel who would otherwise have no other way to acquire their goods out of fear of being accused of supporting the practice of witchcraft.

Morendale greeted me with a cheery smile and a nod. He was a shy fellow, roughly my age, with shaggy brown hair and an awful goatee covering his chin. I could swear to you that the man never removed his denim jacket, for every time I've set foot in here these past few weeks, he's been wearing it.

“Ahh, hello again,” he said. “I've seen your blonde friend in here every day this week so far. She take the day off or something?”

I shook my head. “Nope. She's out shopping already across town. She might be in later, I don't know. But I do have a couple questions for you. Figured I'd stop in myself and ask 'em.”

“Fair enough,” he said, clapping his hands together. “What can I do for you?”

I produced the clear glass bottle with the blue and purple fungal spires contained within from my canvas messenger bag and set it on the table. “Any idea what this might be? I'm pretty certain it's cordyceps fungus, but... The coloration of the fungus itself is unique to me. I've never seen anything like it before.”

Morendale picked up the bottle, then lifted it up to the light of one of the oil lamps suspended from the ceiling in order to get a better look at it. We stood in silence while he turned it around in his hands, taking in every detail. I could literally hear the gears grinding between his ears and he mulled it over. He set the glass bottle down on the counter softly. “Hmm. No idea.”

I rolled my eyes. “You're utterly useless.”

“And yet, you and your assistant keep coming back to my store,” he said with a wink. He leaned forward, putting both of his hands on the counter and slouched a bit. “You're probably right in thinking that it's cordyceps. Looks an awful lot like it, structure-wise. But the colors are way off--normally it's, what, orange, cream, reddish? Something like that? I don't know for sure, I deal more in the flowers and roots end of alchemy.”

“Right.”

“Yeah, I thought as much.” He bit his lower lip, mulling over what to ask next. “Where did you come across this sample?”

I told him the story of Nell and the tarantula, and the curious behaviors it displayed that spat in the face of what the fungus has been documented to do to its hosts.

“Huh. Very interesting indeed.” He pushed himself up off the counter and shrugged. “Sorry I can't help you out here... Have you considered doing some research in the library?”

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

And so I did.

I bid Morendale a good afternoon, grabbed the fungus sample, and was out the door and back on the sun-kissed streets of Tirel. It took a bit of wandering around and asking the locals, but after an hour's worth of walking around (with a quick detour for a sandwich at a deli), I found myself in front of an old building that was more traditionally Salvic in design--that is, it was constructed of wood and stone rather than brick and tile.

I quietly pushed open the door and stepped inside. It was nice and cool, much like the weather outside. The interior of the library wasn't terribly big; it was about as spacious as a good-sized two floor family home. I started having a sneaking suspicion that that's what it was before it was remodeled into a haven of entertainment, curiosity and research. There were ample shelves lining each of the walls, filled to the brim with books of varying color and size. In the open area before me, there were six tables, half of which had patron sitting at them, lost in their learning and surrounded by little fortress walls made from hard leather, cardboard and paper.

I approached the front desk. A scrappy-looking young boy sat behind it. He was reclining in his chair, his feet propped up on the desk. He had an old issue of The Adventurous Lad in his hands. I coughed, getting his attention. He looked up at me with beady blue eyes. “Can I help you, ma'am?”

“Yeah. I'm wondering if you have anything available on different, possibly rare strains or mutations of fungus?”

The boy cocked an eyebrow at me, possibly weirded out by my request.

“I'm an artisan cheese maker. I'm looking to experiment with a few new techniques,” I offered as an excuse. I don't think I was fooling anyone with that, though.

He nodded his head towards a spiral staircase that was set near the back of the building. “Second floor, take a left at the top. Stuff on mushrooms and fungus should be second row back from the wall.

I thanked him and went up to the second floor. Upstairs, it was far more cramped, with maybe a person's-width of space between rows. The musty smell of old books flooded my senses, and made me feel at ease. I walked to the stack that the boy directed me to, and started browsing. On Cultures and Cultivating, by Jensen D'Aroth. Mushrooms and Fungi for the Simple, by Nadia Rose-Taylor. Moroder's Saga Book VII: Attack of the Terrible Necro-Fungosaurs, by Goroth Nar'Shulz--obviously a misfile.

A sigh escaped my lips. Several minutes wasted, and I had found nothing that looked like it would be of any help to me. I straightened up, stretched my arms a bit, and was prepared to try and find a different library to browse when I noticed a book towards the top with an rather long title, written on the spine in faded gold lettering--Rare Examples of Mushrooms and Fungus in Southern and Eastern Salvar; A Treatise of Rare and Unique Cases and Encounters With Heretofore Undocumented Strains and Mutations of Mushrooms and Fungus.

And you know with a title like that, you absolutely have to crack open the covers at the very least.

I stood on the tips of my toes and pulled the book from its spot on the shelf. There was a crude gold drawing of a fly amanita on the front. I couldn't find anything about who wrote the book, either on the tan cloth cover or on the first few pages. Curious as to its contents, I climbed back down the steps to the first floor, and sat down at one of the open tables.

I spent the next two hours soaking in every little tidbit of information that this little tome had to offer, while at the same time tearing through as quick as I could in search for any documentation of my little blue and purple discovery. I found written inside, with nifty and thorough little drawings included, the properties, locations, and growing techniques of several different kinds of rare samples that would be of great interest to alchemists around the world--the highly toxic Madman's Nightcap, the disorienting and mind-altering Triptioca Beads, the sweet-smelling Angelhair with its curative properties and much more.

I browsed through countless pages, looking for a sketch of a familiar stringy blue and purple fungus. I was reading a small paragraph about how consuming a potion with an incorrect portion of Red Haldurshii in it would cause your tongue to turn blue then rot away when I was about to give up and try a different book in another library around town. I checked to see how many pages I had left--less than twenty. I turned the page absentmindedly, not expecting much.

And that's when I saw it.

The familiar twisting stalk; blue at the base, and then turning into a dark, oily purple as it went up.

Nemo's Marionette.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Nell jumped off the couch in surprise as I threw open the door to our apartment, Rare Examples in hand. “Nell! I found it! I think we have a winner here,” I shouted excitedly as I waved the book around.

“You did? What?! Where?!” The blonde put down the book she was reading on a pillow next to her, and walked over to the work table where I had started throwing odd pieces of junk and alchemy tools to one side. I gave the table one last quick swipe with my mechanical hand before slamming the book down on it and flipping to the page I marked with a small ribbon.

I violently pressed my finger onto the colored drawing of Nemo's Marionette. “That, right there! That's what was growing out of the spider you found last night!” Nell leaned in closer and squinted to get a better look at the sketch. “I was right in thinking that it's a strain of cordyceps,” I continued. “But according to some of the research notes in this book, it acts a little differently than normal versions of it.”

My assistant looked at me quizzically. “How so?”

“Well, for starters, this strain doesn't simply replace the tissue of its host and force it to go someplace high in order to simply die and release its spores into the air.” I flipped the page over and waved my hand over a couple paragraphs typed in neat lettering. “It says here that it's been documented that the fungus acts in more of a twisted, symbiotic manner. It's been observed several times in the past that the host being--not just spiders and insects, but apparently small animals as well--retains most of its higher functions. However, the fungus does remain in full control of the host's actions; it's just able to tap into the thing's memories and instincts in order to continue operating long enough for the fungus to mature to the point where it is able to release its spores.”

“Okay, but what's with your sudden interest in this?”

I looked at Nell for a brief second, surprised that she hadn't deduced it for herself yet. “Well, I was first intrigued when you said that the spider followed your every suggestion last night. It let me to hypothesize that, perhaps, there was a way to control anything infected by the Marionette directly—through vocal commands or maybe even by telepathy, I don't know.” I picked up the book and waved it front of her, the yellowed pages fluttering in the air. “But with these notes, maybe I can infuse a few of the samples we collected with some alchemical mixture in order to give myself some sort of control over infected hosts.”

Nell's big blue eyes widened, and a bit of color drained from her face. “Maddy, that's... horrible!”

I raised a finger in the air to shush her. “You forget our place now, dear. We're Hands of the Mind now. We're duty-bound to help the Order along on their path through research and development. In case I need to remind you, we're about to go to war. Our purpose right now is to devise and develop new weapons with which our new friends can overcome any adversary that stands in their way.”

“I... I don't get it,” she stammered.

“It's quite simple, Nell. I want to devise a way to turn this unique strain into a weapon for our allies. Why waste the lives of our enemies on the battlefield, when we can just as easily steal their ranks over to our side? And if they should fall after their turning, then it's of no cost to us whatsoever.”

The blonde stood silent in our dimly-lit apartment for several moments. The quiet was awkward for the both of us. I could tell she wasn't happy with my ideas and plans. I turned and stalked into the kitchen, rooting through the cupboards that hung over the sink until I produced two small glasses and a bottle of dwarven whiskey. I poured each of us a shot, and offered the barely-legal girl one. She hesitated for a second before reaching for the glass.

I downed my shot in one gulp. “I perfectly understand that you don't like the idea. And that's totally normal for a rational human being. But what I need you to realize is that we've got some rough times head of us. Dark times. We're going to be asked to do some horrible things in the near and far future. If I didn't think you had the steel for it, I wouldn't have brought you along.”

Nell swirled the amber liquid around in her glass, searching for the words to say to me. “I get that. And I do thank you for the opportunity to get out of Radasanth and away from... Well...” She quickly changed the subject. “What I don't get is, why here? Why this? Why couldn't we travel somewhere else, and do good with your talents and research?”

I reached for the bottle of whiskey, and poured myself another shot. “I tried,” I said, emotionless. “Many times. I guess it's just not in the cards for me, y'know?”

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

We spent the rest of the night devising a way to carry on the experiment. We tore through a few volumes on alchemy, searching for any recipes that granted some sort of mind control effect upon any that consumed or absorbed the mixture, but coming up short. We found bits and scraps, to be sure, but nothing thorough. The two of us took a late dinner in our apartment, and then went over the plan of attack for the next day. I would start hitting up other alchemy stores around Tirel, trying to piece together the perfect alchemical mixture and the ingredients I'd need for it. Nell, on the other hand, would scour the alleyways for an unsuspecting stray cat for us to experiment on.

(We came to that mutual agreement when the both of us realized that I'd get frustrated chasing cats around town and end up killing a couple by accident.)

Neither of us slept particularly well throughout the night. I was too excited for the days to come; Nell refused to tell me why she kept waking up at night. We went out for breakfast at one of the local taverns, then recapped our itinerary before going our separate ways.

I had a small list of addresses written on a folded piece of parchment that listed the names and locations of every alchemy shop in Tirel. I decided to begin my search with the ones operated by the dark elves of Alerar. I'm most familiar with Aleraran alchemy from my studies (and otherwise ill-gotten knowledge), and figured that it would be a great way to start.

Potions and Portions, The Bitterwort End, The Mortar and Pestle, The Silver Alembic, Christina's Cauldron—one by one, I knocked the shops off my list. Each of my fellow alchemists had some sort of advice, some little snippet of formula to offer me in my search, but nothing concrete. I realized that I was asking for an awful lot for my experiment; a mind-control recipe wasn't really the safest thing to cook up in this hyper-religious, backwards, ignorant country. But the bits and pieces started coming together.

When my visits were complete, I compared the notes I had taken in each shop and cobbled together this preliminary list:


1 oz. finely-crushed wormtongue
3 drops of pure ashbark tree sap
2 oz. powdered taproot
3 oz. chopped/crushed Nemo's Marrionette stalk
liberal scrapings of flesh or body parts from a previous host
10 drops of blood from the person who shall have the controlling bond with the new host infected by the fungus

...Well, it's a start. The blood would act as the catalyst that would get the alchemical reaction going. I would be mixing all of the ingredients together, heating them up in a bowl, and then pounding everything together into a fine, liquidy goop that could be forcefully ingested by a subject, or injected directly into their blood stream.

From there, theoretically, it would take some time for the fungus to take hold of its new host. I had no clue how long it would take for the process to happen; hours, days, even perhaps weeks. I imagined that it would all depend on the size of the host and how well their own biology is able to resist the change.

There was only one way to find out.

I backtracked through a couple of the stores I had previously gone to earlier in the day, managed to scrape up just enough of the stuff I required in order to create five solid doses with varying measurements of ingredients, and returned to my apartment to begin mixing.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Clunk clunk clunk clunk.

The sound of the stone pestle crushing and mushing up the mixture echoed through the otherwise silent apartment. My work table was cleared off, save for my organized ingredients and alchemy apparatuses. I moved all my available oil lamps to the area, to give myself plenty of light to work with. I raised the pestle over the mortar and leaned in for a close look. Everything seemed to be working so far—no foul, noxious odors, no sudden explosions, no interdimensional portals suddenly appearing over my couch and dumping untold horrors into the cramped apartment.

Satisfied that the ingredients were properly mixed and ready for the catalyst and application of heat, I ignited the small oil burner and set a small steel bowl into the circular rack over it. I poured the prepared mixture into the pan, and gave it a few seconds to heat up. In the meantime, I set out to try and find that small butterfly knife that I bought in the bazaar in Radasanth for a few pretty pennies. I dug around in my traveling satchel, only to not find it among my few earthly belongings.

Son of a bitch, where can it be, I muttered to myself. Then I remembered that I had used it to chop up an apple, and had set the silent fruit-slaying tool by the sink. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the knife, washed it in the bin really quickly, then brought it back to my work bench. I had a small bottle of rubbing alcohol nearby, which I used often to disinfect my tools and toys. I splashed a little bit on the blade, then wiped it clean.

Picking up the knife in hand and flicking it open so the sharp edges were exposed, I raised my left hand over the small bowl of heated ingredients. I took a deep breath as I raised the blade to my palm, and then pulled. I winced, closing my eyes shut as the blade cleanly sliced just deep enough to draw blood. I opened my eyes as a small trickle of blood began to run down my pale skin.

I clenched my fist, and started adding drops of blood to the mix, counting each and every single one. One. Two. Three. ...Ten.

With the addition of the crimson liquid, the mixture's individual ingredients began to react with one another. It started to bubble and boil. A few wisps of dark, oily smoke started to rise. The whole mix smelled of iron and decay. I had to cover my nose with the sleeve of my shirt so I wouldn't inhale it. I coughed a couple times, and then grabbed a small stirring rod and began to stir the heated mix.

Several minutes later, an exasperated Nell threw open the door to the apartment, her hands torn to shit and clutching a cage with a very angry, dirty, matted orange cat in it. The cat recoiled against a corner of the cage and hissed at the sight of me.

“Well, you seem to have found a fine specimen,” I told Nell.

“He was a feisty one, that's for sure,” she said, rolling her eyes. She dropped the cage onto the floor next to the couch, and walked into the kitchen to wash her hands clean of the grime and blood that had covered it. I set down the stirring stick and started digging through a small box I kept near the foot of the work table. I found a bottle of anti-bacterial disinfectant in short order. “Here,” I called after Nell, and tossed the bottle to her in the kitchen. She turned in time to catch it, then went back to cleaning her hands off.

“You, uh, might want to give your face a good cleaning too, dear. I think the bastard got you on the cheek as well.” She apparently heeded my advice, for ten second later I heard some muffled cries as the disinfectant did its work on the two jagged scratches the cat left on her face.

I turned back to the brew as it boiled above the oil burner, giving it a quick inspection. Everything had catalyzed into a mesmerizing swirl of red, blue, and purple. I would give it ten more minutes to cook and fully liquefy before removing the bowl from the rack with my dehlar hand and place it on another rack to allow it to cool.

Roughly half an hour later, everything was finished. The Nemo's Marionette mix had sort of formed into a dark bluish goop, a little bit soupier than syrup or molasses. It looked like it could easily be applied to the head of an arrow or edge of a knife, or even poured into a syringe and injected into a potential host.

Nell and I eyeballed the cat, as it sat in its cage by the couch. It truly was an ugly, feral little thing, clearly a stray for its entire life. I had no qualms conducting my experiment on a little beast such as this. And considering how many war wounds it had inflicted upon Nell, I think her apprehension had disappeared as well.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

The time had come to conduct the first experiment of many with the samples of Nemo's Marionette that I had.

The mixture had cooled down. I found a syringe among my tools, and carefully poured the dark liquidy soup into an open end. I replaced the plunger, aimed it back at the steel bowl, and gave it a couple squirts. It didn't explode out of the end of the needle, but it at least ejected it. That's a good start, I'd say.

I looked back at the hissing, growling stray. It pressed itself sideways against the edge of the small metal cage, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and it as it could. Nell sat on the edge of the leather couch, cloth in hand, wiping away some of the blood that had begun oozing from a wound on the back of her right hand. A rare scowl was etched on her anger-reddened face. “You aren't going to reach in there and just... shoot him up, are you?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course not, dear. I'm tough, but I'm not an idiot.” Syringe in hand, I commanded the delyn cables I kept wrapped around my upper arms to come out from their hiding places underneath my sleeves. They slowly floated through the air, towards the cat in the cage. With the tip of one, I grabbed onto the latch that kept the wire door locked shut, and kept the second strand at the ready for when I opened the door. I had planned to throw the cage door open, then go with with both strands of cable and bind the cat so it couldn't move.

But that's not how things went, of course.

With a flicker of thought, the wire threw open the latch. Before I could push both of the ends of delyn cable through the cage door, the cat escaped and immediately bolted for the couch. Nell screamed and swung her ample self up onto the couch with inhuman speed. The mangy orange cat scrambled underneath, and began growling in earnest. “Oh no you don't, you flea-bit fuck,” I cursed as I commanded the two wires to follow it underneath the piece of furniture and into its hiding place. There was more hissing and spitting, as it fought with the wires in an attempt to escape my telepathic clutches.

The little beast scampered out from under the couch, and immediately looked up at me. I was briefly taken aback, having in that moment not seen the face of an alley cat, but the face of a true monster. It hissed at me, bearing its fangs, and then rushed forward to attack me. My wires redirected themselves to try and intercept the cat, but it was to fast. The only thing I could do was swing up my right foot.

Thud! my boot connected with the jaw of the bastard, and it was sent flying across the room. Nell gasped in surprise as the cat hit the wall and fell to the floor in a pile of fur, mud, and probably fleas. The two of us sat there in utter silence, until my blonde assistant burst out in surprise. “Madison,” she cried, “you killed it!”

I took a tentative step towards the thing, syringe still in hand, wires floating in the air around me. “No, it's just stunned at the moment. Let's get this over with while we have a chance, alright?”

I commanded the wires to snake around the paws of the cat and wrapped them tightly, so it couldn't escape. Effortlessly, and with a single thought, I picked up the cat and held it in the air several inches from my body. It's little cat bastard lungs were heaving up and down in a slow rhythm, and its little cat bastard legs were twitching involuntarily, trying to fight their bindings. I raised the needle up, giving it another test squirt, and then inserted it into the cat's neck.

The very moment I pushed the plunger, injecting its contents into the thing's body, the cat sprung awake and let out an unearthly howl. I reeled back in surprise, and for a moment, lost control of the wires. The cat freed itself, landed on its padded feet with a soft plop, and then made a mad dash towards the kitchen. I took a couple hurried steps to follow it, but it had leaped up onto the counter, knocking over several whiskey glasses and cooking pans. With the beautiful grace cats are known for, it hopped over to the sink, and then from there, to the open window along the far wall.

“No--!” I scrambled into the kitchen, my wires dragging on the floor after me. I threw open the window and looked outside in every possible direction, seeing nothing but the inky shadows brought on by the Salvic night in the alleyway below. “Get back here, you asshole,” I screamed futilely into the night. Of course the cat wouldn't listen--it couldn't speak the common tongue.

I withdrew from the window and reentered the living room. Nell was on her feet, her coat already halfway on. “We have to find that fucking cat,” I said hurriedly as I went to the couch to grab my own jacket.

“I know,” she simply replied.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

The nights in Tirel were chilly this time of year. Of course, saying that it's chilly in Salvar is like making the observation that water is wet or that hellfire burns you down to your bones. Nell and I rushed out of our apartment and down the stairs that led to the cobblestone streets below.

Where to begin our search? For as well as the streets were laid out, the alleyways that twisted themselves between buildings were labyrinthine. The pathway that the cat escaped into from my kitchen window had no less than four different!

To say that I was incredibly frustrated would be an understatement. Here an opportunity had presented itself to work with a very rare fungus, to stretch its capabilities to the limits that science and magic provided and twist them to my own uses, and my experiment went and ran out on me. Now, I would have to scour the night-choked streets and alleyways of the fourth-biggest city in this stupid frozen wasteland for a stupid mangy cat, because quite frankly I had no idea what the thing could even do should the fungus actually take hold. Could the damn thing spread it like a plague by headbutting peoples' calves, like cats are wont to do? Would it start biting other stray animals and create a hellish army of zombie fungus cats, dogs, and giant sewer rats that would overrun Tirel's citizens in short order?

I didn't know. And it terrified me. Not the concept of it; but the fact that if these things started happening, they could probably be traced back to me. Everyone running in alchemy shop in town knew I was up to something, and Morendale knows that I had the Nemo's Marionette sample--and he seemed like the kind of weasel who'd rat you out. The goatee gives it away.

We searched for hours. It had to have been well past midnight when, frozen, hungry, and tired, we decided to stop in a tavern for a bit of a rest. Nell had complained when I refused to just quit searching and leave the matter for the morning. Who knows what that cat bastard could do in the meantime.

I pointed out a little dive with a sign reading “In the Company of Wastrels” illuminated by a couple of torch sconces, and decided that it was as good of a place to warm up as any. I pushed the door open to gain entry to the tavern. Inside, it was as agreeable to my Corone tastes as you were likely to get in Salvar. A dozen or so round wooden tables were arranged in neat rows in the middle of the tavern. The place was relatively empty, since it was late into work night. Candles suspended overhead by dark iron chandeliers illuminated the place with a soft glow. A stone fireplace was against the far war, a giant fire roaring within. To my left stood the bar, with a thin, bearded man standing behind it, absentmindedly polishing up a couple drinking glasses that the night's patrons had left for him to tend to.

Nell and I rubbed our hands against our arms in an effort to warm up. We sort of did this half-walk, half-jog thing over to the bar and pulled up a couple of seats. The two of us sat, slumped forward and half-freezing, when the barkeep sidled up next to us.

He asked in a gruff but friendly voice, “What'll it be this fine evening, ladies?”

I ordered two shots of some generic vodka from Knife's Edge while Nell opted for a glass of water. I was willing to share my drinks with her after the long night we've been having, but hey; more for me, I guess.

The keep produced the drinks, and I immediately downed one of the shots. My blonde companion sipped her's as I stared into the crystal clear abyss that was the second shot glass. I ruminated on the events of the past couple days. I thought about the unbelievable stroke of luck that made the tarantula follow Nell to the apartment and the rare strain of cordyceps that had grown out of it. I thought about the furious flurry of research and desire for experimentation that had overwhelmed me in the past 48 hours. I thought about that stupid fucking shithead cat, and how much I hated it for being an uncooperative brat. I thought about how I wanted nothing more than to see that cat--to both hug it and bring it back to my apartment for further experimentation, and to strangle the ever-loving shit out of it until its green eyes rolled up into the back of its skull and its tongue wagged limply out of the side of its mouth.

I wanted to see that cat again more than anything in the world. So much potential and so much danger was currently stalking the streets of Tirel, and it was all my doing and/or fault.

Picking up my remaining full shot glass, I let it hang in the air in front of me for several seconds before I brought it up to my lips and downed it. The fiery burn it left behind as it slid down my throat left me without the usual satisfaction.

I wanted nothing more than for that goddamn cat to show up right here, right now.

In a beautiful and slightly scary twist of irony, as my glass clinked against the bar, the door to the back room opened. One of the tavern's wenches came bursting through, a frazzled look on her face. Coddled in her arms was a lump of matted orange fur. A head poked out from near the woman's boobs. I looked at it, did a double take, rubbed my eyes, and then squinted at the fuzzball. Could it be? Could it actually be--? I felt a quick tugging on my left shirt sleeve. Nell had noticed it too, and had come to same conclusion I had.

It was that fucking cat.

The barkeep shook a dirty dishrag at the wench. “Harriet, you know you can't bring animals into the tavern!”

“I know, sir,” she hurriedly replied. “But this cat just kept on clawing at the door to come in--! I was on my smoke break, and it kept bothering me. I tried to shoo it away, but... I don't know, it just really wanted to come in!”

Nell and I exchanged glances. Neither one of us knew what to think. I looked back at the cat, which was staring at me with a far different look than it had previously. This was one of warmth. Of compassion. Of love.

Come on kitty, get your ass over here, I thought.

The bar wench continued, “I, uh, noticed these little blue lumps on—oh!”

She threw her hands up in the air as the cat leaped out of her clutches and onto the bar. It sauntered over and plopped its hairy butt onto the bar in front of me. I looked at the cat, then at Nell, then back at the cat. “Ma'am, is that your cat,” the wench asked me.

“Uh, yeah,” I said with an uneasy laugh. “Yes, it is. Thank you for finding it for me--I thought I had lost it!”

“Well, you might want to get it checked out, then. There are these weird little blue bumps growing out of its neck or something.”

Nemo's Marionette.

I cautiously raised my mechanical hand in front of the little orange wretch, hesitating to touch it. Rather than the flurry of claws and teeth I had actually been expecting, the poor little thing leaned forward, closed its eyes, and started playfully headbutting it.

Lie down, I suddenly found myself thinking.

The cat obeyed.

I leaned in close. “...Do a barrel roll,” I whispered softly.

The cat obeyed.

...Oh, shit.

The mixture actually worked. The experiment was a success.

I felt a sudden warmth overcome me. It was a wave of relief, of excitement, and of anticipation of the future. A smile crept across my lips. A wicked, horrible, evil grin. My superiors in the Order would be pleased to find out about this.

I had much work to do.

[Lye]

Thread Title: A puppeteer in Tirel
Judgment Type: No Judgement
Participants: BlackandBlueEyes

BlackandBlueEyes (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?3431) Receives:


1,280 EXP!
120 GP!

[Lye]

EXP & GP Added.

BlackandBlueEyes jumps to Level 7!