Peek: Old Staiven

Staiven happily moves around his alchemy lab, glad to finally be able to put it through its paces after what feels like decades.  Sure, he was able to shake the dust off when he tried to examine the so-called go-juice, but that didn't get him any interesting results.  This new concoction, though, is.  He just has no idea what these results actually mean, which is why he's a happy and busy ratkin.

He's met with Queen a couple times now, and each one has been an interesting experience.  First first time was just them each getting a feeling for the skill of the other.  While Staiven is still confident he knows more about alchemy, Queen has a strikingly different take on alchemy as a whole, made all the more mysterious by the simple fact she doesn't talk about how she some by a lot of her formulations.

The fascinating concoction is one of those things.  While there are many different ways to let someone breathe underwater, most use at least a little water mana.  As far as he can tell, her version of the potion is primarily lighting mana, with a smidge of life to help keep things running smoothly.  She coyly didn't tell him exactly how it worked, but she did make it in front of him after he showed her a more classical take on the mix.

Thankfully, this one behaves when made outside of the dungeon, and he's been running as many tests as he can think of on it.  He's also working on a few ideas to help her with an aqua mobility potion, too.  He likes the idea of using the properties of oils to help repel water, so he's been experimenting with that as well.  Perhaps they can compare notes the next time he visits.  He'd like to visit the other little dungeon and get some mushroom samples, but he doesn't trust his invisibility tincture to last that long.  His formulation has a nasty habit of wearing off at inconvenient times, and he never had a reason to really try to improve on it.

Perhaps he'll see if Queen has any insights on that next time, too.  But for now, he has a busy lab to oversee.  Things are condensing, distilling, precipitating, mixing, and more as he uses every tool he has to take apart the potion and see how it works.

The results are making no sense, which is why it's so interesting!  He even takes a dose of the potion and tests that he's done it properly, by dunking his head into his large cauldron, simply full of cold water.  Yes, he can still breathe, so it's working, as is his testing rig.

He pulls his head up and drys himself as he tries to figure out how it actually works.  He moves over and examines his mock up of a living body, which was quite complex to set up to get a potion to react properly in it, but the test apparatus is invaluable for testing new formulae, and getting a better idea of how they actually work.

It looks like the lightning mana is boiling the water as it enters the airway, which lets the body breathe, but that makes no sense!  Steam should be far too hot if it was boiled.  And even if it's cool steam, there's no air in water!

He paces, equally elated and frustrated at the puzzle that continues to elude him.  He lets his mind wander and chew over water and steam, and an interesting bit of information sticks in his head.

There actually is some air in water, just as there is some water in air.  Water mages can pull trifling amounts of water from the air, or even more if it's humid.  Air mages can pull a little air out of water, too.  It can even be done naturally if a container of water is left out.  Bubbles can form on the container on the inside, just as water can form on the outside.  Is that what Queen's formula is doing?

But it's not using air mana.  It's using lighting mana.  The only thing lightning and air have is common is storm clouds.  Perhaps that is the method?  Instead of breathing air, it lets the imbiber breathe clouds, and that's what the life mana is helping with?  It'd certainly be simpler to breathe a cloud than water... but he still can't shake the feeling he's missing something.  That should require storm mana, but maybe the reaction is producing some?  It wouldn't take much, but he should be able to measure it.  He prepares to do just that, unaware he's on the wrong path.  It's not his fault that water is made up of two gasses.

It also doesn't help the ratkin alchemist that hydrogen and oxygen produce an almost invisible flame.  He can't see the change in the torch over his test model as the electrolysis-freed hydrogen and oxygen combust and recombine.