• Closed • Day of the Exploding Rabbit

[Tio Silver]

Scalvoris Campus
24th Vhalar, 717

If Tio was to describe his current skill at alchemy, he'd say that he was on the verge of becoming competent. The amount of his experiments that ended in explosions was now just over two-thirds, a success in his book, and it was getting to the point where Tio felt he was ready to try his hand at making something new: potions.

His fellow alchemy students had advised him not to attempt such a thing; after all potions had to be made with a lot of care in order to avoid making something toxic, and given Tio’s track record it was unlikely that anyone would agree to drink a potion that was likely to make the explode. But as usual the Yludih ignored them all. What did they know about making potions anyway besides all the health and safety lessons they'd had in the lectures he never attended? There was a 33 percent chance that someone who drank his potions wouldn't explode, which was bound to be enough for some poor desperate saps out there.

It was with this in mind that Tio found himself out by a muddy lake in the countryside around Almund, a favourite place for the city's toilet cleaners to dump refuse if they were feeling too lazy to dispose of it properly. Unsurprisingly the lake smelt absolutely terrible, enough to make Tio crinkle his nose and repel any creature with a sharp sense of smell for miles around, but this lake was the home of a very special kind of creature, with a very special property he wanted to exploit.

Lisarra’s Blight Drinker’s were an unusual type of leech that were fairly well known in medical circles for their useful ability to eat decaying material, making them useful for cleaning infected wounds by eating away unclean dead flesh. Chemists however spoke of a rare chemical make-up within them that was very helpful for delaying reactions in otherwise volatile compounds, essentially a chemical that could calm down other chemicals and potions. If he could learn to harness this chemical property and apply it to his alchemy Tio might be able to make potions that weren't toxic for people to drink, not to mention solve his exploding problem.

Wincing at the task before him, but resolved to go through with it anyway, Tio set down the large empty jars by the side out the lake and knelt down in the filth. He grabbed hold of a rotten log washed up on the edge and with a heavy sigh turned it over, revealing a writhing horde of pale leeches matching the description of the ones he was after, and picked up a jar to scoop up as many of the leeches as he could. Once he had as many as he could fit within he topped up the remainder of the jar with lakewater to keep the leeches moist and twisted the lid back on, setting his catch down to the edge of the lake. Already his hands and clothes reeked of the foul stench of the creatures, and the Yludih found himself fantasizing about the nice hot bath and fresh clothes awaiting him when the job was done, but his task wasn't over yet.

He still had three more jars to fill.

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[Tio Silver]

If Tio’s lab didn't look like an evil witch's lair enough already with its soot covered furnishing and cast iron cauldron bubbling away in the centre, it certainly did now that Tio was chopping up leeches and dropping the pieces into a jar of dark green liquid. In order to get to the stabilising chemicals he needed Tio was adding the leeches to a lightly acidic liquid that would dissolve their flesh without ruining their chemicals, which was a disgusting but sadly necessary process.

With his chopping all finished, Tio poured a buckets worth of water into the mixture and stirred it around, then waited for a while as the mixture settled. The leech chemicals floated to the top of the mixture while the acid sunk to the bottom, separating the two with a layer of water and allowing Tio to skim the leech chemicals from the top into a separate jar. He left that jar over a burner for another few moments to evaporate most of the water still mixed into the leech chemicals, and then poured the purified concoction into a number of vials.

Now came the part that made him really resemble the classical potion brewing magician from fairytales. Returning to the bubbling cauldron in the centre of his lab, Tio began taking various minor reagents from all over his lab and stirring them into the mixture like a chef. With each new ingredient the potion changed in colour and began to bubble, fizz or smoke a few times, but as they grew more extreme he added on vial of leech chemicals into it and watched in satisfaction as the reactions died down.

Now for the main reagent for the potion. Tio had decided to keep his first potion simple, and so chose to attempt to make one that would simply increase a person's strength. To that end he'd paid a visit to the butchers and bought a large parcel full of muscles from a bull that'd recently been put down. According to his basic alchemy textbook the muscles of various animals were great reagents to enhance your own corresponding muscles with, and the stronger the better, so the muscles from a fully grown bull were sure to have quite the kick to them.

Dropping the muscles into the cauldron, a grin crept up on Tio’s face as the potion changed in a dark, meaty pink colour. The potion looked the way his books had said it should, but there was only one way to know for sure if it worked or not.

It was time to test it.

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[Tio Silver]

It had taken a few trials to run a permission form through the university, but Tio had finally gotten the go ahead to test out his potion on a living creature. Given how new he was to the subject Tio wasn't yet allowed to test his potions on humans, and so the university had provided a rabbit named Flopsy to be the very first being to try one on.

Flopsy, being a rabbit, did not understand the gravitas of the experiment he was about to partake in. Or maybe it was just Tio imagining it to be more important than it really was? Whatever the case the floppy-eared bunny sniffed around its cage, unaware of what fate had in store for it, as Tio filled a bowl with the contents of one of his potion vials and set it down just outside the cage.

Flopsy gave the bowl a tentative sniff, curious as to the source of the strange smell placed outside its home, and then flicked out his tongue to lap up some of the concoction. After a moment's hesitation he decided that he liked the taste of it, or at least didn't dislike it enough to ignore it, and continued to drink from the dark pink mixture. There was no sign of any strange effects at the moment, but Tio still watched with an unwavering stare, pencil and paper at the ready in case he needed to make any notes.

And then it happened.

Flopsy, deciding that he'd drank his fill, turned away from the cage door. All of a sudden an unnatural shudder ran down down his spine, causing him to kick out with his leg reflectively…

And kick the door to his cage flying off its hinges.

Tio leapt away with a start as the cage door flew past him, narrowly scratching his cheek and crashing to the ground. But Tio’s surprise was nothing compared to that of Flopsy’s, who’d been startled by his own strength and leaped into the air, only to find that his legs were now powerful enough to send him flying halfway across the room!

“Mayday! Mayday! My super-rabbit's grown too powerful!” Tio yelled as he took shelter under his desk from the panicking mega-bunny, which was now blindly rampaging across the room like a ricocheting bullet. Wow, who knew he'd ever have cause to say that sentence again? Destiny truly did work in mysterious ways.

Just as he was resigning himself to have to crawl out the door of his lab to safety there was a loud, abrupt popping noise, and in an instant the sounds of chaotic destruction ceased. The smell of cooked meat filled the air, and slowly Tio poked his head out from under the desk to see what had happened.

There really was no nicer way of putting it: Flopsy had exploded. Whilst it had bestowed the strength enhancing effects he'd intended for it, Tio’s potion was still clearly unsuitable for living beings to consume, and so had exploded whilst within the rabbit's system. A tragic way for any creature to go for sure. Tio just hoped that his little bunny soul would see that what he’d done to him was done in the name of science, and that he'd have the heart to forgive him.

“Rest in peace Flopsy.” He whispered, scooping the meaty smelling remains up into a dustpan with as much reverence as he could. “May you go now to a better place; a land filled with all the carrots you can eat.”

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[Pash Raj'oriq]

Thread Rewards

So much murder in the name of science in this thread. RIP clothes. RIP leeches. RIP bull. RIP Flopsy. Jeez, Tio. Improve your science skills. Heehee. Nah, just kidding. This was a fun but heart-wrenching read.

Tio Silver

Points

XP:
10 | These points cannot be used for magic.

Fame:
N/A

Loot

2 Jars of Lisirra’s Blight Leeches, Lisirra’s Blight chemicals, 5 “Bunny Blaster” potions (BOOM)

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
Alchemy: The basics of strength potions
Alchemy: Using muscles as reagents
Alchemy: Animal testing
Alchemy: "Bunny Blaster" potions
Chemistry: Lisarra's Blight Chemicals
Chemistry: Separating chemicals with water

Other Knowledge:
N/A

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