• Closed • First Encounters Redux (Jinyel)

[Rickith Lanza]

Rickith had been in a depression the last few cycles, the death of his moth still fresh in his mind. He was just finally beginning to come to terms with his grief, so he decided to make his way down to the university to see if Doran was there and continue his lessons in Alchemy. As he made his way through the halls, he ended up somewhere by the science classrooms, and looking a bit gaunt in the face looked into one of them. It wasn't every day that he thought about alchemy anymore, and his mind wandered a great many places. He knew he should have gone back to the Eternal Forest to look for Jinyel after he randomly vanished and appeared back at the beaches of Scalvoris. But he never did. There had been a bright light in Rickith's mind when he had been exploring the Sacred Forest with Jinyel. It had lasted until he returns from the Syper mountains, and then he began to dwell upon the loneliness that he felts, from his mother's passing, and the words that Doran had told him, that he should have sought him out for his help, made Rickith begin to think in a circular fashion of "What ifs?" he had actually sought out Doran's help with his moth.

Those thoughts had driven him to the depths of despair, knowing that he could have potentially helped either ease his mother's passing, or helped her get better. Doran had seemed to understand or know of people who had had her condition before, but Rickith hadn't known that, and had he, he might have sought his professor's assistance. But now he was finally starting to come to terms with his grief and was looking to get his life back in line of where it should have been going.

Dark hued eyes sought the inside of the biology room which was where he was looking until he heard someone call out his name. Turning his head, he saw a person he hadn't seen since his days a few cycles ago when walking within the academy. It was Artiga, a woman he knew as an acquaintance, and not much better than one. They had met during a seminar that he had gone to about engineering, a topic Rickith knew very little about, but of course he was a sponge for knowledge, so he wanted to see if it had interested him.

With her, was a cloaked man, with what seemed like scarf around his mouth. Well from his build it looked like a cloaked man, but perhaps it was just a burly woman. Rickith couldn't tell from under the scarf, so he nodded to him, and turned towards Artiga saying, "Hello again... How are you doing Artiga? And who is your friend?"

OOC

[Jinyel]

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The Mushroom Caper

The thing Jinyel liked about Artiga ― well, one of the many things ― was that she was always clear about when they were doing something wrong. No winks or side-speak, just an honest Random people can’t just walk around the laboratories, but deliverymen can, so you just need to pretend you’re in the process of helping me set up. For a few breaks, if necessary.

The University was the biggest structure Jinyel had ever seen, at least to his spotty memory. The spires were sharp, the stone smooth, and there was an austerity about it which unnerved him. As if the walls themselves knew he didn’t belong here, and looked down upon him in disapproval.

But the ‘deliveryman’ excuse worked time and again, especially when Jinyel carried a chunk of rotten wood with him. He and Artiga received plenty of uncertain glances when she declared time and again that she was actually studying the thing, followed by “Oh, well… you have fun with that.” or “I suppose you’re allowed to study that if you want, but…”

… but then they’d end the conversation, and side-eye the wood as they went on their way.

The closer they got to the laboratories, the less people stopped to ask questions. They are all so focused on where they needed to be, they seemed to barely notice the world around them. There was an urgency here which Jinyel liked; less receiving information, more prying it out.

“Oh, my ― Mister Lanza!”

Artiga turned on her heel, and Jinyel nearly slipped to keep up with her. Their hall branched off, and another student strode down that branch. A student which Artiga was very keen to talk to.

“I’m doing well!” she exclaimed. “But what about you? It’s been so long since we’ve seen you, and I heard about your mother…” She shook her head. “No. That’s an incorrect conversation to have, I’m sorry. But you’re here! Are you well? Hunter, this is Mister Lanza, he’s been a student here for some time, we took an engineering lecture together. And ― oh, I’m sorry, you asked about Hunter, too. Well, Mister Lanza, this is Hunter. He’s a deliveryman, helping me with my experiments.”

Her hands fluttered between the two men, as she was wont to do when excited. Jinyel, for his part, merely stood there in silence. The rotten wood took up both hands, and he wasn’t keen to speak out loud in such an austere place.

This seemed the place for a response, though. That was what civilized people did. And so Jinyel met Lanza’s eye, just for a moment, and gave a somber nod of acknowledgement.

“Are you on your way to the laboratories?” Artiga continued. “Are you back for the semester? What are you studying? I seem to remember you were taking alchemy with Professor Doran, is that still the case?”

[Rickith Lanza]

Rickith smiled as Artiga explained how she knew Rickith to this peculiar man named Hunter. He hadn't seen him around the university before, and it looked like his arms were busy holding up some rotting wood that he was carrying. Nodding to him, he said, "It's nice to meet you, Hunter!" He'd love to have a better look at his face but figured there must be a reason why he kept himself wrapped up like that, so no need to pry. Rickith, himself was dressed in a white tunic with brown leather pants, and a simple pair of shoes. Which was surprising given it was the cold cycle, and he had just come in from the outside more recently. But ever since he had been marked by Ziell, the cold didn't really bother him too much, he was able to tolerate it much easier, which was good.

Turning his brown hued eyes back towards Artiga, he smiled, and said, "I was in a rough spot the past few cycles, but am doing better now..." There was a hint of sadness in his voice as he spoke, but he straightened his shoulders as to not looked like a depressive slump when speaking with them. "I was on my way to the alchemy laboratory to do some experiments with some of the substances they have there but hadn't quite made it there yet. Stopped by this biology room to take a peek inside and see if there were any lectures happening, but alas, not so much. I'm planning on being back for the semester to continue my studies in Alchemy and Medicine, with probably a bigger focus on potions, and how they can help people with debilitating ailments, such as what my mother had. I was looked for Professor Doran, but happening upon you is good too. How have things been in the engineering and science world for you? Are you doing a project that involves rotting wood?"

The question, based on mere curiosity from what Hunter was carrying, Rickith wondered about what they were planning on doing with the wood. Then another thought popped into his head. "Perhaps you can give me some lessons in engineering at some point. I would love to hear what you have to say on the subject. Or any science that you study in general," he commented, but then fell silent to see exactly what they were planning on doing with the rotting wood that Hunter carried...

[Jinyel]

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This Mister Lanza was an agreeable sort. Jinyel liked that. No prying glances, no leaning around to try and get a glimpse under the mask. A nod, a hello, and then on to their business. He seemed a bit underdressed for mid-Zi’da weather, but not painfully so. Or at least, it didn’t pain Lanza.

“How wonderful to hear you’re feeling better.” Artiga smiled. “And we seem to be going the same way. Shall we walk together? My lab, er… the little room I’m allowed to use isn’t far from the alchemy labs. It’s not technically in any section, but we make do with what we have.”

She found their direction and turned back to its course. Jinyel fell behind a few steps, hopeful that Artiga could take the bulk of the socializing. Not that she was especially good at it, either, but she at least had the benefit of knowing this man.

“The engineering has been… as good as it could be. I work-studied at the Almanac this past Vhalar, in Egilrun. Have you seen it? Lovely place, the proprietor is the best you can find on Scalvoris. Although you really must be careful on the road if you ever head that way. Or maybe just make sure you follow the right river. I got lost, is what I’m trying to say, and it was a dreadful time all around. But Pidge ― from the Almanac ― was kind enough to let me keep the position even though I arrived so many days late. Hunter was every kind of blessing on the road, it was a whole adventure in itself.”

She grinned back at Jinyel.

“Pirates, a very large snake, I saw a fracture. A real, live fracture in the wild, although I suppose it’s gone now. Pirates will kidnap you right off the road if you look smart enough, Mister Lanza, so you really must be careful. I think I’ve hit my limit on thrills, so I’m staying firmly on-campus for as long as I can. Are you not cold, Mister Lanza? The weather’s turned rather sharp, I’d say. We’ve had a hard time growing our mushrooms, though the… the stuff seems alive enough. I don’t know the name, Hunter is helping me study the little filaments which mushrooms grow out of. I don’t know if it’s ever been studied before. Perhaps I shall get to name it, once I publish. If I publish. It’s been a struggle, getting the resources we need. The University doesn’t seem especially interested in non-magical mushrooms.”

[Rickith Lanza]

When Artiga motioned towards her little room that she said she did her work in, Rickith nodded. Smiling, he took stride beside her when she went on what Rickith might have thought was a rant. She was certainly not as reserved as some of the people he had met in his lifetime. But she talked about getting lost and seeing quite a bit of stuff, including a fracture! Rickith didn't know much about them but was nonetheless intrigued. Then she caught notice that he wasn't wearing anything more than a white tunic and leather pants, asking him if he was cold. Smiling, he said, "No, I'm not that cold, I've notice that I haven't been getting very cold even though the air around me is colder. I see other people walking around in more dress than myself, and it make me wonder if I should, just to not stand out..." He was pretty sure it was his mark that Ziell had given him, but he wasn't 100% sure. Next time he ran into Ziell, he would have to ask.

"Publishing a paper would be a great thing to do especially if it's not been studied very much by anyone. You might be the first to actually ask that question, 'What are those filaments'?" he said to her. Brown hued eyes glance back towards Hunter, knowing that he had been silent for most of their walk back to her room, so Rickith thought to include him in the conversation. "What's your story?" he asked the man named Hunter as he turned his head to look back towards him...

[Jinyel]

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Artiga chattered on, and Jinyel understood about half of it. That thing about ‘publishing,’ she’d mentioned it before, although Jinyel wasn’t quite sure what it was. If she wanted others to know about her discoveries, it seemed much less complicated to find her colleagues and simply tell them. There was also the issue of “resource grants” and “faculty support” which had gone straight over his head, but Artiga seemed very insistent that they could get a bigger laboratory and more wood to test with if she only managed to publish.

For now, though, Jinyel just wanted to focus on keeping this fungus alive.

Lanza’s comment struck a chord, one that Jinyel had been asking himself all through Vhalar. Was he really the first to ask these questions? He could understand the ignorance, considering how bizarre fungus actually was. How vast, and how active. Only his grasp of magical enervations had allowed him to even glimpse fungal networks in the first place, and of the people in the world who practiced Graft, how many of them collected their own mushrooms? How many of them cared enough to actually look at a mushroom before they picked it?

The rotten wood was only dead on the outside, and only to the naked eye. In Jinyel’s bare hands, he could feel the faint traces of life throughout. Mushrooms seemed to have the same winter dormancy as plants, but the previous samples they’d examined had ‘woken up’ when placed in a warm environment. The main problem was that neither Jinyel nor Artiga were particularly skilled gardeners, and none of their samples had survived more than a tentrial.

Jinyel was so lost in thought, he almost missed the fact that Lanza had asked him a question.

Me? Jinyel shifted the wood to one hand in order to sign. I am Hunter. I am a deliveryman. I have no story, except… He gestured to his mouth. I cannot speak.

Which wasn’t entirely true, but he’d been much more careful about speech since coming to Scalvoris. The gigantic canine teeth and the foot-long tongue tended to put people off, and he simply did not have the patience to deal with put-off people.

You, he signed instead, hoping to put the focus back on Lanza. What is your story? Here? Your science?

[Rickith Lanza]

As soon as Hunter began to sign, it gave Rickith's flashbacks of his time with Jinyel back in the Eternal Forest. From the time that he had randomly appeared that to their adventures there together, him teaching Jinyel alchemy, or the basics of it, as well as Jinyel's mysterious healing after having saved Rickith from a boar. "You cannot speak?" Rickith understood it somewhat from having watched Jinyel use sign language. He had a rudimentary grasp of sign language from his time spent with Jinyel, so it was interesting to meet a second person who knew it.. "I met someone once who used sign language. A few cycles ago within the Eternal Forest. Kind of miss him, but as for my story, I have been attending school here for Alchemy and medicine. Mostly under the tutelage of a professor named Doran. I have been in a bad way the past few cycles due to the death of my mother, but every day it gets a bit easier..." he stated, his eyes a bit downcast as he thought about her.

He had grown up his whole life thinking she'd be by his side, especially after his father left them both. It did make him think back to the memories he had of his father before he left them. Many memories they happened to be, but as the arcs drew on, those memories became much less memories, and things that were forgotten. "I'm also keen to learn any new sciences that come about. Possibly thinking about engineering at some point, or more about biology and chemistry. I do want to start experimenting with Potions in order to learn more about them, and how they might ease people with the same affliction as my mother..." he said, a smile crossing his face at the thought of being able to help people who had a similar affliction.

"Coming to Scalvoris is actually somewhat of a recent development. I started studying alchemy in Viden, under Doran's tutelage, then continued my studies after taking a couple arc gap to help take care of my mother... Viden is where I spent most of my childhood, and lived there for most of my life," he then said, thinking back to his time in the northern city...

[Jinyel]

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Lanza adjusted easily to the fact Jinyel couldn’t speak. Perhaps a bit too easily, as the conversation continued. A few cycles past, Lanza said he’d known a man. Someone like Jinyel who spoke with his hands.

Someone in the Sacred Forest of the Eternal Empire.

Jinyel resisted the urge to pull his hood lower. ‘A man in the Imperial Forest who used sign’ could be anyone, really, no need to believe Lanza was talking about him. And also no reason to ask aloud to confirm it. Scalvoris was new ground for him, and with a new name, Jinyel had been able to put some distance between himself, his past, and the gaping hole of amnesia that had swallowed the Sacred Forest. Very, very few people knew his real name, and he wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. Until he never had to fear being tracked down ever again.

I have never been there, Jinyel replied. Scalvoris is my home.

Professor Doran? The name jogged something In Jinyel, a memory, a dream he hadn’t dreamt but had learned of years after. A dream of a funeral, of a Prince, and of a nephew who had never existed.

Medicine. Good study. Always need more.

Artiga laughed over her shoulder. “Oh, modest, aren’t you? Hunter is something of a healer himself, though he’s never studied here. How did you say it? ‘Sitting in place for hours is painful?”

Torture, Jinyel corrected. I would rather peel my fingernails off one by one than sit in one place and do nothing but watch someone for hours.

“Well, peeled fingernails can’t be worse than what the snake did to you.” She shrugged. “Is this our lab here? I think this is our lab here. Where are you, Mister Lanza? Are you close?”

[Rickith Lanza]

Rickith's knowledge of signing was about to show, because he only understood a word here or there of what Hunter was saying to him. The earlier stuff had been a bit easier, but now it was getting harder for Rickith to follow along. "So you've never been anywhere but Scalvoris?" he asked for clarity, gathering the words never, been, and Scalvoris. He'd have to piece it together based on context clues as well. Medicine, good study, wasn't sure of what followed.

Then Artiga laughed and called him modest, saying that sitting in place for hours is painful. Hunter corrected her with a word that Rickith wasn't quite sure of, maybe pain or something. Something about peeling things, than sitting in a place, doing nothing, and he couldn't figure out the rest of what was said. Smiling, he was about to ask Hunter to better explain the last parts of what he was saying so that Rickith could come to an understanding of it, when Artiga pipped up talking about peeled fingernails, and something a snake did to Hunter? "I didn't realize there were any snakes endemic to this area..." he said, trying to think of any of the biology, flora, and fauna he had heard of being in Scalvoris.

When she asked him then if the room he was heading towards was close to them, he looked around, and said, "Yes, it's down the hall and to the left, first door on the right. Are you planning on studying mushrooms right now? Or just dropping stuff off for future research?"

[Jinyel]

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Lanza struggled. That was good, Jinyel supposed. The truth was easier to conceal in sign, and doubly so when that sign was only half-understood.

Instead of sign, Jinyel gave a firm nod. It had been difficult enough to sign around the wood anyway, and he had no desire to give away more information than necessary on the off-chance that Rickith did know his name.

It helped that their laberty stood in front of them. Laborty. Whatever Artiga called it. This University had so many words which seemed unnecessarily long.

“Snakes. Hah.” The sound out of Artiga seemed more like a cough than a laugh. “Well, my mother always called them ‘boulder snakes.’ The proper name is ‘Scalv ziemia,’ I’ve heard. The. Um. The big ones. The really, really big ones. Underground. The ones that can swallow a horse.”

Her next laugh sounded closer to a yelp.

“I don’t like snakes anymore!” she told the lab door. “How about we get to work on the mushrooms, Hunter? We’re… well, we’re trying to study them, but it’s a hard thing to do in Zi’da. We’re trying to set up conditions for the filaments to stay alive and keep rotting the wood, but it’s hard to keep the room warm enough for long enough while also going to my classes. Here, Hunter, would you…?”

She held the door open, and Jinyel stepped into their laboratory ― a small, windowless room furnished only by a brazier in the center, and wide pans on the floor which held various other chunks of rotten wood.

Can’t bend, Jinyel said.

“Of course! I’m sorry for making you carry it for so long, here.” Artiga took the wood from him. “How are your shoulders, my friend? I know you said they were better, but does this make them worse?”

No. Jinyel flexed his hands, feeling the muscles shift under the bandages. A paper-thin layer of skin coated his shoulders now, delicate but present. His healing journey was almost at an end.

“Do you have classes elsewhere, Mister Lanza?” The young Artiga set the wood onto a pan. “You’re welcome to watch if you like, but I’m afraid it won’t be very exciting. Just looking at dirt and rot.”