RP:Full Floral Alchemist

Part of the What Dreams May Come Arc

Summary: Callum returns to Rynvale with a second shipment of Frostmaw goods for the apothecary in Fog Forest and leaves with a whole frakkin' lot of confusion and a bismuth crystal skull.

The Apothecary's Hut, Fog Forest, Rynvale

Callum | It’d been a week or so since Callum had returned to Rynvale. It had been like any other completely normal delivery to the apothecary and yet… he could not shake the nagging feeling that he should be there. He’d told Meri as much, and waited until there was to be another delivery to the island before finally returning there. He didn’t want to seem overly suspicious, you know.

Now, the day was fading, the sun sinking ever so slowly behind the trees in the Fog Forest. There were some days he wished he was a fire mage and today was one of those days. As the sun disappeared, he was left to navigate with the unfortunate level of eyesight a human is awarded--that is to say, not lowlight vision--and plodded along next to his blue roan, Mr. Storm Cloud. The horse carried a crate or two upon its back; not everything had been ordered by that weird apothecary. Maybe whatever else Callum brought he could attempt to sell. At least, that’s what he was hoping to do as a distraction as he investigated the shop.

That feeling was still there, as Callum approached the mist-covered pool just in front of the shop. The last bit of golden sunlight bounced off the fog and cast an eerie glow about the place, making that strange feeling even worse. Great. As if the Catalian needed to be any more on edge. A bit of air is sucked in between his lips and let out in a heavy sigh before the botanist pushed his way into the building, leaving his merchandise outside for now.

Lionel | Failure. The most incomprehensible word in any of the six languages he has mastered. It’s a disease to him, a rot to be stymied, a malady of maladies that must be burned, excised, left behind but never forgotten. If he had a conscience, Caiburne still wouldn’t dwell on the execution of the misshapen ogre chained haphazardly to metal crates in the makeshift cellar of the apothecary’s hut he’s made his own. After all, there is no longer any need to let its suffering linger. Its bulbous eyeballs and ripped-then-stitched lips are the least of its deformations.

But for all the plucking and tearing of skin and tissue Caiburne has conducted, for all the magical enchantments upon the organs, for all the resized bones, the experiment has ended in failure. Caiburne’s face scrunches in disgust. He draws his scalpel like a painter might draw a brush, applying pressure directly upon the prisoner’s heart. Its screams cannot be heard beyond the weakest most muffled sound; the stitches hold. “Settle down, friend,” the alchemist says with the lilting tone of his native Catal. “You hardly held a life worth living in the first place.” Caiburne’s scalpel suddenly thrusts deep and heavy into the ogre’s heart, destroying it. The ogre -- the failure -- wags and whispers wails, waves violently to and fro, and then goes still forever. Caiburne sighs and clicks his tongue. What a waste of perfectly good manna.

Caiburne hears the footsteps up above, but he doesn’t jolt into action. Method and purpose are the key pillars of success -- that and astounding intellect and cunning, both of which he knows full well he possesses in spades. That’s why he performed miracles at the Réiteach Bellum. That’s why he survived the fall of Catal. That’s why he outlasted his dead-and-dusted captors aboard the Sunderia. And it’s why he’s here now, reunited with his crystal skull, his most prized possession, at the edge of the uncivilized and unwashed realm called Lithrydel where his experiments can go on. “Just a second, please,” Caiburne calls, setting aside his scalpel and changing robes. It wouldn’t do to treat a guest in bloodied rags, even if they should prove a prospective victim. He climbs the stairs to the main room, sealing the dug-in trench he calls a cellar behind him with not just a lock but a powerful, near-imperceptible spell. Out from the dungeon and into the well-stocked, immaculately-tended storefront. “Greetings, friend,” he greets Callum with a warm inviting smile.

Callum | It was probably a good thing Callum didn’t hear those screams. He was here entirely alone save for that horse of his. And where would he run to? The ogres and goblins? The dragons that slept nearby? No, no. They’d all pick him apart. Catalians were exotic creatures, you know. They’d prove to be quite the delicacy. Callum might be a little more stringy than the others, unfortunately. For those that might hypothetically eat him, that is.

But, no. Callum doesn’t run. Instead, he greets Caiburne with that ever-charming business-like smile of his and even adds in a little wave from across the shop as well-polished shoes bring the Catalian closer to the counter, “Hello again. I’ve got your shipment of Frostmaw herbs. It’s a pity I can’t grow them myself right now, but I’ve checked them out and they’re nearly as exceptional as my own.” That unexplained feeling Callum got was stronger in here. It was strong outside too, amongst all of those vines and plantlife that clung around that misty pool untamed and free to do as they please, but it was far moreso within the shop. With every step towards Caiburne, new things overcame Callum: a chill up his spine, a bit of his hair standing up on the back of his neck and along his arms, and an overwhelming sense of dread.

He couldn’t be sure if it was Caiburne himself, for he was quite an odd older man and something seemed so… familiar… about him. Unbeknowst to Callum, it was very much akin to Brand’s lack of awareness to Callum’s own Catalian heritage the first time they met. “I have some other things too you might be interested in outside. Figured I’d let you get first pick before I tried to sell them off at the docks as I usually do. Anything you’re short on?” He glanced around, curiosity settling on his features. Perhaps -too much-- curiosity. It was almost as if he were looking for something.

Lionel | Caiburne thinks little and less of Callum’s curiosities. It is quite right for a visitor, even on their umpteenth voyage to his shop, to be bedazzled. Poultices from half a dozen kingdoms line one wall in brilliant colors. Poisons and herbs and tonics fill shelves and cabinets to the brim. Hitherstalk, with its neatly-trimmed fang-like green protrusions, hangs delicately overhead like mistletoe. Maiden’s Tumult dangles near the doorway at its most seasonable blue. Dead Man’s Chest, so titled for its grisly appearance like a string of rotting black-red hearts, dangles above a row of ornate jars filled with bubbling fuchsia liquid. A caged wererabbit runs in place inside a trickster’s wheel, ever out of range of the perfectly-preserved corpse of a rabbit; through a funnel beneath the cage, an odd purple ooze gathers and sloshes and turns to mist. Caiburne’s hut may be ramshackle and his location may be remote but it cannot be said that he is anything less than a master at his trade.

“Just so,” the apothecary says with a toothy smile. “Frost giants are such interesting creatures, don’t you think? Oh, brutal and savage and deeply religious,” he continues, as if all three descriptors are synonymous, “but capable of such precision splendor.” He trots outside merrily to examine Callum’s shipment. “Wolfsbane isn’t here,” he muses grimly. “Not to worry, of course. There hasn’t been much by way of wolfsbane since that fool substance abuse scandal swept the City of War. I imagine the winter wolves have multiplied enthusiastically in turn.” He chuckles at himself and peers back at his guest. “Everything is in immaculate order. You do good work and it shall be rewarded. What else might I be considering purchasing today, then? Go on, upsell a poor old man.” There’s mirth in his voice.

Callum | “Wolfsbane could be easily procured, I think. From Vailkrin. Some of the folk there don’t particularly care too much for lycans and keep it just in case. I’ll make a trip there on the way back to Larket.” Callum had followed Caiburne outside, of course, and he’d taken to staring at the mist-covered pool. Had it always been so covered in those tangled, gnarled vines, Cal wondered to him? They looked as if they could strangle a man down into the water with but a word from the right person. “Anything more to sell you? Mmm, no. If there’s nothing there you seek, then I was thinking perhaps that there might be something you could sell -me-. I feel as though I am drawn into your shop by something… otherworldly. I imagine it’s just my love for the plants you sell drawing me in, but I’ve not been able to shake the feeling that I’m to find something I need here.”

Callum continued to play it cool--a good portion of the time, using the truth was better off than lying about things when he was trying to get information. “It’s absolutely something in your shop, for I felt it when I returned. Perhaps I’ve just become so much more attuned to plants and nature and the like as of late that it’s the shop itself and nothing actually inside it. It -is- curious, though…” The Catalian left his horse and his wares behind, trailing back into Caiburne’s hut, and leaving the older male to follow him.

Lionel | Caiburne examines the nape of Callum’s neck as the younger man returns inside the hut. It has a fragile slant to it, he ponders, ripe for injection. The rest of him is equally suitable, from the slender form to the visible veins to the robustness of his inflection. Caiburne recognizes the hints of accent in that inflection; Callum may not fancy himself much of a Catalian, but the voice does not lie. Shared ethnicity means little and less to the apothecary, except that it guarantees a likelihood of familiarity with the botanist’s genetic highs and lows. An ample specimen. Why hasn’t Caiburne seen it previously? Why hasn’t he acted sooner? Silently, he advises himself patience. For everything there is a season. It wasn’t seasonable on the lad’s prior visits. Perhaps it is now his time to die. The vines in Caiburne’s pool tense and slither over one-another too quietly for Callum, now back inside the hut, to hear it. Caiburne tosses a scrap of ogre meat from his pouch into the pool for them and joins his guest.

“Most fascinating,” Caiburne calmly intones. “A calling, yes? A sort of urge?” Already, his intelligence is shining, deducing the likeliest scenario. Callum Rochester must be a witch. He may hide it all he wishes; it will matter little and less in the coming moments. A Catalian witch, attuned to the frequency of Caiburne’s precious piece, that best bauble which has aided him in countless ways for more years than he’d care to consider. The bismuth skull! The apothecary absentmindedly covers a patch of green skin on his right forearm with the edges of his robe. “Yes, yes. Quite. Quite, indeed.” He hastens toward an elaborately locked box, undoing its clasp and then sliding a copper key into its slot. Afterward, he enters the appropriate symbols in a row of movable pictures depicting various woodland creatures, and the box pops open with a clang.

Caiburne feels a surge of creativity -- as well as a pang of hallucinatory disorientation -- and Callum may feel it too. He pulls the beautiful skull from its padded place in the box in both arms, cradling it. His eyes widen with joy, first at the skull and then at the man in front of him. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

Callum, in most cases, has always been prey. Were he an alien, he’d probably have threat ganglia and be affectionately known as a cinnamon roll. Oh, who am I kidding? He -is- an adorable little cinnamon roll. Since he’s quite without threat ganglia, the hair on the back of his neck stood up as Caiburne stared at that very spot and made those mental calculations. A chill went up the younger Catalian’s spine--and he did his best to cover this up, but his best was not his best unfortunately--as Caiburne -admitted- to knowing of that which Cal spoke. So… he wasn’t hallucinating. He wasn’t absolutely nuts.

And then that box was brought out… and a skull was made known to sit within it. A skull. A crystal skull. One of the very skulls that Uma sought to find in order to bring back Valrae. And yet… this was not one of the four that Uma had named, if he was remembering Meri’s words correctly about that night the witches had their meeting. The iridescent collection of rainbow colors shined in the dim light of Caiburne’s shop and home and Callum could not bear to to take his eyes off of it just yet. “Beautiful. Yes.” Even now, the skull called to him. Even now, as Caiburne willingly showed it off to Callum, the raven-haired male felt the urge to steal it. He feigned calmness, however, and finally said at length, “How did you ever find such a thing?” Callum was far from calm, however. Was he shaking? He couldn’t tell if the anxiety that suddenly started to grip him was actually moving his body. It was -right there- and Cenril’s very existence depended on it. Even if it didn’t… it -wanted- to go with Cal. It -begged- Cal to take it with him. To whisk it off to other parts of Lithrydel, far far away from this alchemical heathen. To hide it away and use it for his own devices. “What does it even do?”

Lionel | Oh, it enhances me,” Caiburne answers without a second’s delay, fawning over the skull and petting its temple with a toothy grin. My work takes on second shift, as they say, thanks to the artifact. Second and third, truth be told.” He gestures widely to his astonishing collection of wares. “I still tire, as bodies tire, but while I am awake my creative progress is far beyond any other person within my trade.” Certainly beyond the balderdash of any of the bumpkins they’ll have encountered anywhere else in this blasted backwater, anyway. Caiburne has no awareness of the tomfrakkery involving the proposed resurrection of some local hick witch, but if he did, he’d scoff and insist instead that they use the skulls’ combined power to resurrect Danther Allbrook, the clever but ignorant Catalian alchemist whose treaties on the shared traits of fauna across the Veltharn Hegemony was a crown jewel of the Bellum, but who never appreciated Caiburne’s hard-fought revisions as he should have. In hindsight, forging Allbrook’s murder as the result of a poor mix of explosive poisons, whilst momentarily satisfying, was somewhat preemptive. Indeed, if Caiburne had any notion what multiple crystal skulls here in Lithrydel could achieve, he’d bring that well-spoken oaf back from his spontaneous combustion just to lord his recent achievements over him and then he’d kill him all over again.

“Finding her was easy,” Caiburne continues. “She was in the Bellum’s vaults for years before I came along. The product of some coven’s debauchery, of course. Topless heathens crying wolf to the moon.” He snickers. The caged wererabbit snivels and growls in frustration at the meal it has not been granted. Caiburne, noticing, turns around. Still clutching the skull in one vice grip, he presses a lever and adjusts a knob on the cage, so that the rabbit’s corpse falls from where it’s hung and the wererabbit can devour it at once. The amount of blood that gushes upon the triple-thick glass is considerable. “Discovering her purpose was even easier, as it happens, because immediately after touching her, my brain went open like a wellspring.” Caiburne hasn’t turned around yet. Is this a good opportunity for Callum to strike, should striking be in his consideration? The apothecary appears to be fiddling with something just past the cage, though. Something small that Callum will have a tough time discerning from his present angle. “Catal may have fallen, friend, but we few are told to eke on. I, however, have no need to eke. I have everything I need. In fact, the final ingredient for today’s brew stepped through my door, oh, just moments ago.”

Callum | There was a bit of a head tilt on Callum’s part as Caiburne went about petting the skull, like a dog entirely befuddled by what its master was saying to him. The skull enhances Caiburne. He found it in the Bellum. It came from witches. Callum was almost unphased by the wererabbit as his attention shifted carefully back and forth between the alchemist and the skull. The skull itself sang to the younger as Caiburne had his back turned. He was hesitating. Why? Because things just suddenly got complicated? Things had gotten complicated in the past. Hell, he lived in a constant state of complicatedness for a long time now.

But, this. This was different. The skull was -actually- calling to him. What did that mean? Was he a... ? No. Surely not. Though, it -would- explain his penchant for botany. It -would- explain why his parents had been so insistent on Callum becoming a mage rather than the alchemist he begged so hard to be. To think that the pure and noble Rochester bloodline (which really was anything -but- that) could be sullied by witches, his mother would’ve died of fright and the vapors and his father would’ve promptly hanged himself the instant he found. No, perhaps he was not a witch -truly-, but still… he could not deny that the skull had a fondness for him now.

And then those words hit Callum’s ears: ‘The final ingredient just stepped through my door’. Was that an eye twitch? Yes, definitely so. How did he manage to get into these predicaments lately? And without Meri too to help him. “Frakking hell…” is all Callum managed to mutter as lightning arced from his fingertips to the back of Caiburne’s neck. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but it was certainly enough to give him a jolt and let Callum grab the box and head out the door in a rush. That was perhaps probably a bad idea, considering Caiburne wanted to kill Callum and made this known to the world as terrible villains often do. But, nevertheless, Callum stole away Caiburne’s precious from the hut and went to load it up onto his horse. Callum was probably much too convinced by his own attack that it would keep someone as dedicated as Caiburne down for long.

Lionel | Caiburne doesn’t anticipate the attack, which in hindsight is an error on his part. He’ll chastise himself for it in privacy once this rabble has ended; it’s a small matter, a minor mishap in the road to true greatness. Nevertheless, he’s hardly fazed by it. The lightning jolts his neck only slightly; it largely ricochets, slamming full force into the tiny metal contraption he’s been toying with. The blow of it still breaks his mouth with a cough and he stumbles forward into the cage, which crashes onto the floor and makes a terrible break, glass shattering in every direction. A few of those pieces pierce vines of Maiden’s Tumult and Dead Man’s Chest. The Maiden’s Tumult springs to life like a viper, chasing Callum on his way out of the hut and snapping its jaw-like leaves every which way in hunger. The Dead Man’s Chest emits a terrible clear-blue haze, which prompts further coughs from Caiburne and an Old Catalian curse involving seven devils and a woman named Florence who invented a machine with which to trap the devils but accidentally killed herself in the process. It’s a lengthy quote reduced to a few smoldering words mumbled mid-choke. The wererabbit leaps out of its cage and could easily overpower the aging male, but opts instead for the fresher blood of the younger one. Caiburne breathes more easily for few stray heartbeats despite his predicament. He’s opened the latch on the metal contraption, twisting the copper piece within it.

The vibrations nearby ogres will suddenly feel cause excruciating pain, so they howl like dogs in the nearby shrubbery, climbing up from their crouches with clubs raised and shirtless muscles popping in motion. Caiburne’s most peculiar trick sends reverberating sounds at frequencies humans will not hear, but goblins and ogres and trolls will be sent into blood frenzy over, and as they reach the clearing, they see multiple things to attack: a raving wererabbit, vines from the hut on a murder spree, vines from the pool leaping up in an effort to strangle Callum at odd and ugly angles, and -- most deliciously of all -- Callum and his horse. Caiburne himself lets the haze of the Dead Man’s Chest fade and locks his door, peering through its small peephole and prepared to disengage his control spell once the fool thief has been properly dismembered.

Callum | The things Callum’s done in his life haven’t necessarily been -bad-, so what in the seven frakkin’ hells did he do to deserve this? Maybe this was karma’s way at getting back at him for that fight with Meri? Yeah, probably. Those she-devils always have the forces of the universe on their side. It didn’t take long for Callum to realize that things just got progressively worse. -This- is why Brand and Lionel made sure the bad guys were dead. It’s taken Callum a little while to figure this out, but if he managed to get out of this alive, he’d probably start following their lead with that.

Before the ogres happened upon him, he’d gift those vines that sought to strangle with more electricity than what he’d given Caiburne. It’d singe here and a bit of their reaching appendages would be burned there, but they seemed nigh unstoppable. Those ogres would surely pummel Callum into the ground if he didn’t do something soon. But what? Still letting loose lightning on his foes, the Catalian side-eyed the box he’d just placed atop Mr. Storm Cloud’s back. No. That’s a bad idea. Very, very bad. Another curse was muttered in disdain before he hastily opened the box and grabbed the skull. Now what?

No sooner had he thought that did the skull create that whirlpool of knowledge in Callum’s mind. The things he’d wanted to do for so long--to be able to control flora like a true herbomancer--he could do this and more, now. The skull spoke to Callum, as it did to Caiburne, and told him how to manipulate the vines. It told him how to use the ones from the pool to wrap around ogres, to bind them, to choke them, to rip them limb from limb as they wished to do to Callum. Flowers along the vines’ length opened up more fully, as if urged by a druid, and spewed poisonous pollen from their depths. The pollen would finish what the vines had not. In much the same way those plants in the Shadow Plane worked, the spores would seek to create new life from the ogres’ corpses as it had before with the apothecary that had dwelled here before Caiburne, who’s still strangely bloated and plant-filled body clung to the vines that tore apart the ogres at Callum’s command.

And what of the vines from the hut? They sought out their former master, busting through the door and windows. They would find him and attempt to slither around his frail old form like snakes. The man that had started to become one with his plants would surely be just that if he could not escape, for the Maiden’s Tumult would find any opening it could to dig down deep into Caiburne’s body, like a freshly planted tree sinking its roots into the ground. And if they could not find an opening? They would tear their way into his body, through bone and sinew and organ alike.

All the while, the skull would glow in Callum’s palm, its aura radiating like a fine rainbow-hued mist around the crystal as Callum did as he was bid to do, for he had no other choice if he wanted to live.

Lionel | Ogres snap like branches at the whim of vines belonging to a new master. Their hulking forms are squeezed and their eyes bulge in mindless frenzy. Size is immaterial to the old world magic, and Callum Rochester has a lot more old world magic at his arsenal than he’ll ever before have realized.

What a day for Caiburne. What a thing to see. His peephole is a mess of nettle that breaks down his door and moves to envelop him. What a day for poor Caiburne, apothecary of excellence for over 45 years going strong… until 30 seconds ago. What a thing to see his own creatures lurk against him, what a horror to witness his own skull betray him. What a look in his eyes, raw and afraid, as the razors of the Maiden’s Tumult earn their namesake. What a startle when his own wererabbit decides that the lightning and usurped power exhibited by Callum Rochester has made for a less appealing meal, and it’s better to nibble and gnaw with hellish teeth at this old flesh’s ankle, ripping out a shred, and then a slice, and then a whole steak-sized skewer. What folly to watch the ogres’ fresh corpses transformed as he howls in unimaginable pain. What a day.

Nothing intelligible escapes Caiburne’s lips as the vines squeeze his skinny body almost to a pulp. He hears his robes tear and feels the needle points cut like butter through his ribs and hips and back. The last thing Caiburne thinks he sees are his own intestines in a trail beneath his feet, although he cannot say for sure that it is not just a wayward rush of the plant that is killing him slowly. It’s a mystery left unsolved. Caiburne hates unsolved mysteries.

And then he vanishes. Small streaks of magic like green tendrils, almost indistinguishable from the Maiden’s Tumult, fill the air inside the hut even as the plant cruises up through the roof and breaks it, thereafter strangling the very hut itself as jars come crashing down in wild cacophony. The building shakes and rattles and almost shatters. The vines grow at alarming pace from within. Suffice it to say, wherever Caiburne has gone, the wererabbit is definitely dead.

But whatever the case of Caiburne, Callum likely will not see. His path, strangely clear, may yet prove arduous if he does not make haste from this place at once.

Callum did indeed not waste any time. What’s left of his wares is shoved from the back of his horse, left to crash to the ground and rot there for all he cared, the skull soon hastily stashed away into his satchel not long after. It’s a good thing Meri actually taught him how to ride that damned beast instead of just using it solely for transporting goods. He’d leave the flora to their own devices and exit stage right from the island to return to Larket.

It was a funny thing to consider: the man-who-might-be-a-witch was running straight towards the place a witch should not go, and he knew this, but did it anyway.