Alastor charges sheared Arcanium

[22:57] Alastor G. Vishkar says, "Okay. Here."
[22:58] Alastor G. Vishkar says, "I think it's the best place to work."
[23:05] The room that they enter soon is filled to the brim with a sulfuric smell. It doesn't seem to be any actively moving, but there are twenty vials in a single place. Ten, made of a mixed ochre liquid that seems to fill the very glass with a thick smog. It seemed to be the origin of the same poison he often employed in combat.

Five, made of rieka-enchanted water. It was a poor enchantment, one that barely had his own energy drained. The other five, blood. His own, nothing else; It still shimmered with the green capacities underneath. "So, here's the thing. I have the poison here..." He pointed towards the first row, of ten flasks.

"They don't affect non-magi. So I needed something different. I needed... Something that took their mana out of their bodies, weakening them to the poison. Instead of trying to drain their mana out to the environment, I decided to do something else. Rieka suppresses mana, yes?" He spoke, before tapping the cork of one bottle filled with rieka enchanted water, and the blood right next to it.

"But I feel like the mixing of these won't go well enough. Because... Well. It doesn't have enough Rieka. So I needed someone to help me drain my rieka... Further into my blood. And who better to do that than a mana drain?" He spoke, smiling some. "What do you think?"
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[23:23] Her nostrils dilate slightly as she walks in, taking in the sulfuric smell momentarily before she simply stopped breathing altogether; one of the perks of undeath, she didn't have to put up with smells that she found to be distasteful. Faintly glowing eyes slowly went over the several vials, nodding slowly, as if just beginning to understand what this was all about.

"Powdered tyrium, perhaps" she mutters to herself in regards of draining one's mana, though it didn't seem to be a suggestion as much as wondering to herself; she does have a certain fascination with the mana sapping metal. Stepping closer to stand beside Alastor, the woman focused for a moment-

A chilling presence spread from her, a cold that creeps up from underneath the skin; with the use of her eldritch powers, the blue glow over her eyes increased slightly as she reached out mostly to the vials, sapping them- getting a taste of the concentration, the density of the rieka within. Inhaling sharply - unnecessarily, too, and likely from the taste of rieka she feels - a slight tug came at the corner of her lips, looking slightly more satisfied, no longer with the disinterest her expression usually displays.

"I can drain your mana" she speaks softly, shifting her gaze towards Alastor slowly and keeping that pale shadow of a smile. "Though I warn you it will be painful. Like nothing you've ever felt before."
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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[23:55] Alastor moves closer to her, and lets out a sigh. Slowly, he removes one of the sleeves that expose the armor, recently punctured by a needle. It was the one he used to remove the arm, after all. Every vein and artery was carefully embedded with Rieka, almost as if it was corrupted by the energy itself.

The bottles were far, far less dense. Even the ones with his blood were more concentrated, but it was a single strand of green that stood in the middle of the crimson liquid. Where for him... It was different. It slowly manifested outwards, and he pulled on a nearby bench, sitting down.

"It will be painful, but I can handle it." He spoke, before grabbing the rubber hand nearby. Analyzing it for a brief second, he decided to put it at the edge of his mouth, biting into it.

"But will you be able to put it somewhere else, is the thing? If so... We could use powdered Tyrium, like you suggested."
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[00:16] "I can" she speaks slowly as her eyes shifted over the room to keep up with his movement; her expression steadily returned to the blank faced one, although there was no disinterest over them, but rather something more thoughtful- wondering, remembering how her own ring worked, though it was a long time ago. She spoke with far more confidence than she actually felt.

"Though I'll have to push it a little."

A little was a way of putting it. Her eldritch presence further shifted, its focus going from the vials towards Alastor himself; though she wasn't sapping or otherwise burning his mana yet, it gave a taste of what was to come- the cold coming underneath the skin, whose feeling had nothing to do with temperature. A prickling feeling, like needles poking at his skin, through his entire body, similar to how it feels when a limb is numb, as the mana within his circuitry reacted from the invasive presence, similar to a bubbling.

"Powdered tyrium within poison would be.." she speaks slowly, with a pause at the last remark, as if wondering how to better phrase it. "It seems like it's work, but for ingestion, not a gas as you had last used it. But it'd also nullify the rieka property within the poison, likely sapping it, so it's either one or the other. I think rieka will work better, here; it'll shut down their mana, sure, but it may also.."

Another small pause, as she was largely theorizing with very little basis here; a hypothetical thing, just an idea that sparked on her mind at the notion of using rieka within poison.

"Give them the visions?"

The corner of her lips curled up slightly at the thought of Huangzhou getting visions of Azrael. That'd be quite something, if it did work out that way; she truly had no idea. Although she did understand of mana, rieka included, her expertise of poisons was little to none.

"Where do you need your mana channeled to? A recipient would be helpful. Anything that'd mix with mana."
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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[00:36] The sensation itself was unwelcome. He grimaced some at the prickling feeling, letting out a long sigh soon after it was done. Nevertheless, it meant something else. But... She spoke about something else, soon after.

Alastor glanced around the nearby spots. She had a wicked idea indeed; A smirk formed upon his lips, as he managed to look for something nearby briefly. And then, upon one of the drawers, he dragged something.

A single chunk of Arcanium, before he put it into one of the nearby oven. If it was something that he needed to put in the poison, he needed to first melt it, so it would be made into a thinner bar of metal. After all, grinding up metal was something... Hard.

And a chunk of Arcanium wasn't that useful, but a bar? It certainly was. The intent was clear; The Arcanium would mix with the Rieka, just like the nearly perfect conduit it was. Slowly, the bar was formed when it had the time to cool down.

A dozen of minutes, noless. No longer than an hour, surely. Chit chat could be done in the meanwhile, but as soon as it was done... The still flexible metal was cut into the mortar, and then, as soon as it started solidifying further, he started grinding it.

Spreading it wide enough so it would become brittle. And then, afterwards, it was crunched and pushed by the Nyeshk pestle. It was soon enough done, Arcanium achieved in powder form.

And soon enough, it was put in a bottle of water, mixed until it had, effectively... Liquid Arcanium. "This is the first step. I just need to find a reaction volatile enough so it can instantly melt, and... Evaporate. All metals do that."
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[00:45] Her eyes turned at the melting arcanium and its shaping of a bar; although she'd still speak with him, about just any random subjects at hand, her attention was focused upon the process itself, the shaping of the metal and its eventual grinding into a powdered form to be mixed. That was certainly one way to go about it; most certainly a liquid that'd hold up mana pretty well, in any shape.

Hopefully better, or at least as good as, her circuitry.

Her hand reached to the liquid mix, keeping it close, though not actually touching- just enough for it to hover a couple of inches above it, with her eyes shifting towards Alastor now. The blue glow over her eyes increased, taking the entirety of her eyes; in a second, there was no more sign of her iris or sclera, just a burning solid shade of blue, glowing as brightly as an oscuri's rieka did.

"Alright, then" she spoke softly, taking a single step towards Alastor, her free hand extending towards him; just as before, it didn't touch him, but rather stood on the air with her palm facing the man's chest. Though the undead neries did not breathe, her expression was strained, and it was clear that she was processing a lot within her mind.

Focusing. Concentrating. It was rare for her to actually focus on something; her decades of experience made it so most spells were fairly easy to cast, even as a visionary caster. This was something else - a more freeform of manipulation, something that'd stretch her normal abilities beyond their usually used point.

Possible, for sure. Just very difficult.

"I'd find something to bite down on, if I were you" she spoke, not without kindness, despite her not very empathetic expression. "What you felt before was just a gentle nudge."
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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[01:19] Alastor still stared. It was simply that, the racial bonuses of an undead neries coming to fruition. Her draining technique, amplified so he could make use of it. It was constant, but now, it was targeted. At him, no less. It ended up that the man took a deep breath...

And soon, he nodded in her direction, dragging the rubber band between his teeth, sinking them into it. It was time for him to get drained, and even if it was painful, he needed to be the first person to witness the might of what it could do.

There were prisoners. His mind tried to not lose focus, still searching for alternatives on how to test and what to do in order to test it. In the end, he needed to do a field test... And it'd soon enough be time to do so.
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[01:38] At that, her eldritch presence was completely targetted towards the oscuri. Though the chilling feeling was much the same, creeping up from within his body, the circuitry behaved a lot differently; bubbling up, that slight prickling sensation rapidly turned into the stabbing of a thousand needles over the body as the rieka was forcefully torn out through his skin, burning through his organs towards the neries.

Like the feeling of boiling blood, the snapping of brittle bones and muscles shredding; like his skin was being scraped by razors and bathed in alcohol as the needle-like prickling became so intense that it was akin to burning - the cold and the burns mixing up in pain, freezing and hot at the same time. A sharp pain, but lasting; acute, but lingering.

The rieka itself wouldn't be visible as it was siphoned from Alastor's body; it went through Astaria's own body, whose senses were overwhelmed by the intensity of the taste, indulging ever so slightly, uncontrollable to the undead whose tastes for mana were always on the extremist side, even slightly addicted.

She did have a job to do, however. Her eyes, in their solid color of blue, turned towards the liquid arcanium nearby; her siphoning wasn't usually used to channel mana elsewhere, at least not something external- it wasn't unheard of, however. Her ring, and that's what she had to focus on; how it felt like when the mana from her siphoning was channeled and stored elsewhere. For the ring, it wasn't conscious; for this, she had to focus on that feeling and force it to be so.

And that'd strain her limits- indeed blur the line between what she suspected and what she had no idea how to do. Somewhere between both, the neries focused her racing thoughts at the feeling from the ring, at how the siphoned mana leaked away from her as it was absorbed. For now, however, Alastor's mana was all going to Astaria. And she was enjoying every little second of it, even as she made an effort to put her mind into reversing the flow.
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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[01:56] Alastor's teeth clenched and dug further into the rubber band, the agonizing sensation spreading through his body. Obviously, it was less than welcome to him. But it was the cost of progress, something that he had to do no matter what in order to continue.

The poison had to come out, no matter what happened. It had to happen, it wasn't anymore because of him having a delusion of grandeur; It was something that Dawn itself needed in the end. His muscles clenched and flexed, relaxing moments after. It was an attempt to keep them sensitive and working, as he felt like all sensation waned from him slowly.

Rieka was something different to what common mana would be, however. It was hard to get it out of Alastor's body, and it was hard to put it in energy form over the arcanium, at least to a certain degree. A better work at outsourcing it than he could do himself, since there was a difference.

While he couldn't possibly push too much rieka out of him due to the self instinct to stop harm to come, that was something that Astaria herself wouldn't have. But even amidst the prickling pain, Alastor managed to stare at the arcanium.

Not yet receiving a single drop of his energy.

The band was, shakily, repositioned in his mouth, bitten at the edge of his lips. And then, he spoke in the free half. "Put-- Put it out. It's pushing me." Obviously, he knew how to amplify his own Rieka; It was his duty as an energy magi, to say the least.
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[02:14] An unrelenting fire of determination, courage, anger; molten ash, but mixed the touch of something- a distiller, perhaps, something strong, like alcohol- a continued flow of tastes that shouldn't taste good, but do, that shouldn't mix well, and yet they did. The rieka felt like a drug to the neries who siphoned and reveled in its taste. Though she wouldn't pull as much of the rieka as she did with mana - not with her current applied force, anyway - it was still very much the thing that could get her addicted the most; and yet, contrary to every inch of her instinct to savor it.

And she pushed against it, her eyebrows furrowing. There was no sweat, nor would her face be of crimson red from the strain- her dead flesh long past such things, and yet, the strain was visible all over her expression; first to struggle against her natural instincts, and second to actually channel her eldritch powers into something productive that could be of use.

A groan of exhaustion was let out Astaria's lips as her mind pushed past her urge to feed; the rieka which was siphoned from her body was channeled through it instead of being burned within, and akin to the feeling of the ring she once had, 'leaked' over through her right hand's fingertips, over the liquid arcanium. Just the equivalent of droplets, at first; the woman, with her mastery over cosmic magic, was exceedingly good at the manipulation of raw mana, though this went much beyond when it was mixed with the foreign ways of mana siphoning.

The efficiency of the rieka channeled through her dropped sharply; that is to say, the dripping energy was still as pure as the real thing, however only a portion of it would be actually channeled into the arcanium- for now, anyway, while Astaria pushed herself to externalize more. Such manipulation of the siphoned energy, for use as opposed to simply burning it within her body, albeit possible, was beyond her ordinary capabilities. And to compensate for that, even more of the rieka was siphoned from Alastor-

-and with that, the pain would only exponentially increase. Sharply rising from within, his circuitry steadily threatened to shrink; not because of the lack of mana in itself, but rather because of the extremely invasive and hostile nature of the Dreamer's eldritch magic. From trauma alone, they'd threaten something akin to short circuitry, spreading waves of pain through the man's body, akin to electrical shocks, though burning in nature.

Fortunately, the experience she had in such field, as against her will as it may have been, paid off; by every second, more energy kept channeling itself through the liquid, conducted by the arcanium within; droplets still, but continuous and steadily increasing its pace and pressure over to the arcanium.

The channeling was working- even though Astaria's expression made it look like she was almost popping a vein.
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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[02:36] Alastor seemed to hold back on it. As soon as his comment was done, the rubber band was slipped back between his teeth, biting down into it. The pain that came forth was something that he was expecting, to say the least. But nevertheless, purple irises remained trying to pull onto his own energy.

Briefly covered in rieka, his eyes soon enough got back to their purple color; His energy was being drained, nearly entirely, but he struggled to maintain it. She needed to control herself; He was putting his trust entirely on her. After all, as someone who relied nearly entirely in his Rieka, even if it was fed out of the unending zealotry that came from the Oscuri...

... It was still limited. He was weakened, frail at her fingertips, but the mention of the green energy going towards the liquid, mixed arcanium brought a smile to tug at the edges of his lips. If everything went according to plan... He could do it soon enough.

The poison was nearly ready. He did not know how much he could have gotten help; Or the fact that the way that her way of siphoning and externalizing mana was something that was a challenge to her. But there remained the tenet of his, and of Azrael itself.

His weakened arms moved backwards, as his back slumped against the chair. He was breathing heavier, circuits losing their typically highlighted green and taking on darker, less bright color, or even his own flesh color at certain points.

He was in terrible pain, but the sucking of his Rieka left him weakened. There was little energy left but the occasional shake of his entire body when the wave of pain went through, slowly growing weaker as his own muscles failed to find an answer to it all, but it was still a sign that no matter how hard it was...

He was still alive.

It was working.
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[03:15] Despite how weakened she's seen that the oscuri felt, she'd only siphon more- a tug, almost like a gravitational pull that came from the undead neries, but for the rieka. The eldritch magic was nearly alien in nature, its intricate workings left as a complete mystery for those that saw it - or even those that felt it.

Within Astaria's mind, her concentration was taxing, and it was taking a toll on the neries to manipulate the siphoned mana with finesse enough to drip it into the arcanium; yet as she had first succeeded, to continue was easier than the breakthrough itself. At every passing second, more of the rieka was channeled onto the liquid, overchanneling it, concentrating as much of it as she could; the efficiency was increasing as her mind and body further got used to this manipulation of foreign mana.

Some of it would still burn within her- it was, perhaps, the sweet, addictive taste of Alastor's rieka that kept pushing her willpower through the strain this required of her, well paired with the notion of what is it they were accomplishing here. A weapon against Huangzhou- those who had crossed the line, over and over again.

She'd feel his rieka was coming down to nearing its dry point, however- and to further continue wouldn't only hurt, it'd rapidly escalate into levels of lethality. Shuddering, Astaria gave it one last pull - just enough siphoned mana for a last push of the energy through to the liquid arcanium, to create this concentrated extract- the pull, the lack of rieka and this hostile invasion causing the trauma, the burning within to make it feel like his organs and even the circuitry itself to feel raw, exposed. Fragile.

As for the neries herself, she didn't seem to be in the best shape, either, though her exhaustion was mental rather than physical. The eldritch magic receded within her, the chilling presence and the pain subsiding rather quickly, yanking out as abruptly as they came as Astaria, seemingly dizzy, took a few steps back from the oscuri to lean herself on the wall.

The strong glow of her eyes rapidly shifted back to its faint one, her stare looking unfocused, distracted, even hazy as it trailed over to the room without actually looking or paying attention to anything. For her, it was the mind that felt fragile, the strain of focusing on too many things at once catching up to her- the siphoning, its force, stopping the rieka's flow from burning within her and actively channeling it elsewhere.

It was too much, but she did feel, even in her state of weakness, a certain sense of accomplishment; from the extract itself they had manage to create as well as her own breaking of new limits for the powers of mana siphoning. That could potentially open an array of possibilities before her..

"That" she spoke weakly, snapping out of hertrance to raise her faintly glowing eyes towards Alastor, struggling to retain focus onto him. "That is as far as I'm willing to push you."

Or myself, for that matter, though that'd be left unspoken. Both were true.
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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[03:46] Alastor seems to be allowing his own consciousness to wane in the process. Eyelids came to a close sometimes, head dropping down, and then tilting up slightly. He seemed to be growing more and more tired as time built up, exponentially so.

But still, he mustered through. Because he had to. Because, also, he tried to stop it; His hand rose some, weakly and put itself over her own wrist-- Or at least he aimed to, but it was no more than a single lifting of his hand in the end.

He was extremely weakened in any case. It worked, it finally worked. His mind rejoiced, with whatever remaining vigor it had. It meant that he was getting closer to what he wanted, a poison that would dampen the circuitry of all those nearby, affected by it.

He needed a few things, but all these were only mentally noted. Few, weak mumbles left his mouth, almost making sure they were noted. He was very, very weakened; Maybe on the verge of consciousness, it could be said. His body was fragile, and at this moment, he could do nothing but think it was all due to pushing himself more than he should.

It was, wasn't it? It didn't matter, in the end. Alastor obtained his objectives. The extract of liquid-merged Arcanium, mixed with his own Rieka, should prove enough to what he had visions of. Should prove as a more than fair contestant to whatever.

He needed to upgrade it to mass production, but it was a task for another day. If the prototype worked... He could experiment. See how much he could get from himself, how much he'd need help to get, and specially... How much he could get from those that betrayed the cause.

At her letting go, he simply moved forward slightly on the chair, letting out a groan. The Oscuri was sweating, perhaps nigh imperceptible for himself due to the tickling sensation over his entire body. It seemed that he was satisfied with the result, the shaky hand moving to grab the greenlit vial...

And smile.

"I did it." He muttered. Even if her participation was needed, it didn't matter. He felt it was his own accomplishment, after all... He was the chemist there.

Still, he looked back up towards her. The smirk was tugged into a half smile, as hard as he could muster. An audible swallow, he tugs onto his cloak to unmake it, allowing it to fall onto the chair. And soon enough, he gets up.

"Thank you, Astaria." He speaks, amidst some heavy breathing. The color soon returned to his rieka, but it was still... Weakened. He had to live with it. It was a reminder that things had a cost. That, at times, there was a price.

A price for Victory.

And he was no man to shy away from a bargain.
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[03:55] Approaching him, with her exhaustion being mental rather than physical, the undead neries gently gripped Alastor to aid him up, wrapping the man's arm over her shoulders to lean against her, whether he liked it or not.

"Come on, now. Let me put you in your bed, you need to replenish your mana."

Her faintly glowing eyes shifted towards him with the shadow of a smile only, though it held much of the warmth and kindness from the 'old Astaria' still- the one who had never left Dawn, when they'd met as Alastor was just a child. When she wasn't undead. Some of it was still there, amidst her usual apathy.
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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[03:59] He tried to bat her hand away. Needless to say, it was all some effort that ended up resulting in nothing. His hand moved some, and it couldn't rise higher than when it made ninety degrees; So he couldn't really help himself but be carried.

It hurt his pride a bit, but it was nice to allow someone to help him with that. "Rieka. You mean..." A deep breath, before he lets out a long exhale. "... Rieka." He finished off.
(Alastor G. Vishkar)
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[04:02] "Rieka, yes" she nodded slowly, her own arm wrapped around the man to aid him with walking towards the bedroom, fingers lenghtly stroking his hair, a treatment that was no different than that she gave to children. It was warm and affectionate, though not romantic in any way or sense. Motherly, perhaps.

"Come on, sweetie."
(Astaria Rosenkreuz)
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