The alchemist and the dragon(P, Drunkensarah)

[ValamLym]

Victoria hadn't been in town long, the horses that had loyally been pulling her carriage resting and eating while she worked and worked within the carriage lab she had set up so many months ago. She had been working tirelessly to cure disease, even biological malformation and to an extend, had been successful.

However, her success had not always come with positives, sadly in the areas where superstition was still a popular way of life she was often regarded to as a witch or a demon. To an extend, some of it was true. A mighty beast did rest within the very confines of her body, but it didn't come out unless she was in mortal peril or properly stressed. She simply was a smart girl with a lot of talent for pretty much anything scientific.

And that is why she was here today, to offer people the chance to be cured of the common ailments and unfortunate accidents. Fevers, colds even broken bones. Her alchemy could treat them all and thus she had grown fairly popular in Ketra, especially with the hunters. Here, she wasn't hated, here she was appreciated and that meant the world to Victoria.

She had just begun treating a poor hunter's boy after a tangle with a boar hadn't gone the way he had hoped, pouring her powerful liquids into his wounds to disinfect it and motivate his body to begin healing. As always, it worked, the pain relieved and the boy left as yet another thankful customer.

''I'm glad I could help!'' she smiled as the boy left her carriage, leaving her several gold pieces as a thank you. Normally she worked for free, simply enjoying the thought of helping. But donations became more and more common, especially here. Finally, she allowed herself a moment to rest, but left the carriage open should anyone want anything from her, as she was always willing to help.

She had turned herself to an experiment she was running. a concoction, made thanks to the beast within that would allow her to regrow severed limbs. It was highly volatile and unstable, but if it worked, it would be the break through of the century and that monster within would finally have served for something good.

[drunkensarah]

Crete had been on the hunt to find a cure for his brother for decades. He had poured all he had into the search, losing contact with those he had called allies and friends. He had heard rumor that many thought him dead, killed by a dragon, which was logical considering many thought him a mortal dragon hunter. His latest hope was of a girl he had heard up who was curing many of the mortal hunters of Adela. She had started making a name for herself. He deeply hoped so could help, though he knew the chances were slim to none. The demonic corruption that had taken over his brother was not some simply broken bone, or laceration. It wasn't some fever, it was a sickness that affected more than the body in mind. It corrupted all the way down to the soul.

Crete had to hope that his brother was somewhere in there though. Crete and Philocrates were twins. Hatched from the same egg. He couldn't just accept that his brother, someone he was so deeply bonded with, was gone.

It took him several days to hunt down the carriage, but he managed. He had staked it out for several hours, watching the wounded and sick file in then leave, one after another. Once it seemed no one else would come for a while, he made the walk to the carriage. He felt nervous, a feeling he had grown use to, a feeling he blamed the possibility of hope for.

He knocked on the door frame gently, not wanting to completely startle whomever was inside. A bit of surprise filled his face as his eyes landed on the inhabitant of the carriage. He honestly wasn't expecting what he had saw. The majority of faces he had seen on his hunt for a cure were age worn, haggard, or mutilated from experiments gone wrong. He wasn't expecting to find someone rather beautiful, young, and kind looking.

He cleared his throat lightly, he rarely talked, and he knew he was going to have to do a bit of talking, which made him a bit sad. Before Philocrates had been tainted he had always been the one to talk, Crete had liked it that way.

"Excuse me miss, would you have a free moment?" He spoke, his words carrying a thick accent from an all but forgotten language. 

[ValamLym]

Victoria had been hard at work brewing new experiments using her own skin tissue, being what she was now, such an act was much less painful as it used to be, her skin regenerating almost instantly. She had been focused on attempting to find a cure for more severe cases, such as lycanthropy and vampirism, although she personally felt nobody should wish to be cured of the latter. To her, it was more of a gift then a curse and with proper treatment one could even survive in broad daylight.

A subtle knock on the frame of her carriage caused her to turn around, noting a tower of a man standing within. ''Big fellow aren't you?'' she asked coyly but quickly turned her face into an apologetic one ''Sorry, it wasn't meant in a rude sense.'' she cleaned her hands in a bucket of water before turning to him fully ''Sure, I've got time.'' she wanted to ask him about the accent, as in all her travels she had never heard it even once before, but she didn't want to come off as the prying type even further thanks to her earlier stunt.

''I assume its for someone else? you look healthy as can be.'' she chuckled tapping her nose ''I've gotten a nose for it.''

[drunkensarah]

"You are correct, I seek a cure for my brother," He stated with a deep sigh, not seeming to be fazed by her earlier comments. If anything, he was use to it. It was true, in both forms. While asleep in his dragon form, be had been mistaken as a mountain, he only awoke because dwarves started to try and mine into and under him.

"It will be something that I don't think you have much experience with, something far beyond the woes of most of these Adelain folks. I am not mortal, I am not human, fae, shifter, or vampire. I am a dragon, therefore my brother is one as well. He is very ill, tainted by something dark, ancient. I need my brother back," He spoke, his voice rather stoic until his last words. His voice shook with a bit of emotion, but never fully faltered.

"Are you willing to try and help?" He asked simply. If she wasn't willing to help he would leave and continue his search, but if she was going to try, they would have a bit to discuss. Not to mention he would have to show her what was left of what had tainted Philocrates.

[ValamLym]

Victoria simply smiled warmly as the man presented her his story. Pondering what had corrupted his brother almost immediately after he had said it. When he finished she took a moment to contemplate her decision. She was going to try, that much was certain but she wondered where she would even start. When he mentioned bringing the object that had corrupted his brother she simply nodded. ''Of-course, helping is what I do.'' she said merrily, stepping a bit closer to the man. ''And don't worry about your race.. I help everyone, vampires, werewolves, dragons, dryad's I've seen them all here.''

after a moment of pause she finally spoke again''Alright, so can you tell me what has corrupted him, or better yet show it.'' she rubbed her forehead ''What's the corruption like? any idea of what it does and on what level it functions? Mental or biological? or maybe both?'' she realized she had bombed him with questions in her excitement and quickly spoke again ''Sorry, sorry I get carried away. It must be terrible to speak about him like that.'' she took another moment of pause ''But you will have to tell me and show me everything you can.''

[drunkensarah]

"It is horrible to talk of my brother like this, we shared an egg, something that rarely happens, something that only happens every couple millennia. We have lived through the ages all but inseparable, now, until he is cured, he is gone," Crete spoke looking down.

"I have the remainder of what tainted him locked away, it will be dangerous for either of  us to enter the cavern it is in, but if we must I can show you. It is like he is possessed, like something is controlling him from within. It all started about six hundred years ago. We had taken a bounty for a warlock. We chased him deep down into the recesses of a cave. At the time we feared no being or magic. We thought we were invincible. Mighty dragons. Age makes you arrogant. We came to the end of the cave were the Warlock stood. He hid behind a statue. Apparently the Warlock though it would come alive and save him, that it did not. Instead with my brother touched it, it tried to absorb him, his hand entered the statue as if it were made of nothing more than water. Of course trying to remove his hand was like trying to pull a limb from a tar pit. We managed, but I could sense something was happening. Over the next few weeks my brother got sick: puking blood, night terrors, hallucinations. I feared he would die. I fear what happened was far worse. I had left so go fetch fresh water and when I returned my brother sat in bed as vibrant as ever, his body showing no signs of how sick he had been less than half an hour before. He had seemed to magically regain all the weight he lost, his color, his magic, everything. The moment I saw him I knew something was wrong. We started to travel again soon after, I could tell he was off. Some of his actions, the way he said things, they just weren't, weren't my brother. I wrote it off though, writing it up to the fact he had just recovered from a major illness. It wasn't until I woke up one night to find his missing from camp. I tracked him down, it took me hours. I found him in that same Warlocks cave, he had started to consume pieces of the statue. As before, it seemed he could reach into what appears to be a solid object with cupped hands and pull from it thick liquid. I was horrified, His eyes were different, and I knew it wasn't him. We fought there, but though it wasn't my brother controlling his body he still possessed all of his power and prowess. I couldn't defeat him that day, just as he couldn't defeat me. I have been looking for a cure ever since," Crete spoke, telling the story of how his brother was tainted. His voice was sad, it was clear those days had been dark ones.

[ValamLym]

Victoria silently listened as the brother spoke. She didn't quite immediatly understood the origin of the affliction but she almost immediately deduced that it was magical in nature. Not something she was very versed in. However, it wasn't like her not to even try and as such she let the man continue his story fully intend on giving his brother's cure the best possible shot she could.

''It sounds more like a form of possession to be honest.'' she added as the man finished up his story. She already had a theory, but if that theory were true then no amount of alchemy could save his brother, he'd need some kind of priest of some kind that can remove spirits or whatever it was that infected his brother.

However, there was another possibility. That, whatever he ingested was still in his system and could be expelled or destroyed from within. She had plenty of concoctions that could cause one to vomit of course, but this no doubt required interference in the man's bloodstream. ''So from what I understand there are two possibilities.'' she paused for a moment, picking two books from her shelf. One, she revealed was about possession. Another was on corruption. ''From your story, I can conclude that your brother is either possessed, or corrupted.'' she rubbed the back of her head as she swung open the one she thought most likely, corruption. ''There are forms of corruption where the host form tries to ingest more of the source form, in this case the statue. By doing so, the control strengthens.''

She took a vial from the top of the shelf ''We'd need to figure out how to cause him to expel this substance. But I do not know whether it is in his blood stream or if it managed to remain within the stomach area.'' she turned her attention back to the dragon, almost having forgotten about his presence. ''Fixing your brother will be a challenge, but I doubt it is impossible. Especially if it is like I previously described.'' she immediately began mixing all sorts of chemicals, trying to figure out which one would cause the desired affect.