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Hammering Heron	The midafternoon sun has made the day a wonderful one for walking through the open markets. The sounds of the verious hawkers and merchants attempting to sell their wares to anyone tha will come close enough to make eye contact has turned the streets into an almost festival atmosphere. Hammering Heron has been searching the market for the last couple of days looking for a woman called Amethyst. She is reputed to be the best alchemist in the city and he wishes to meet her. He has not been successful in that task but has made contact with a great many people looking to him him expand his business. The winds that he generates for himself are the only thing that has kept him cool so far today. He stops to look at the nearest shops to him and has decided that he has not explored this street yet.
Amethyst	As luck or perhaps fate may have it, a certain short fae-touched dragon-blooded finds herself walking down the very same street, fiddling with her basket of all manners of reagents. Seems Heron isn't the only one out shopping on this day. She stops for a second to examine something in her basket, adjusting her supplies. Then when she looks back up, she spots the much taller air dragon. She smiles, offering a little wave.
Hammering Heron	Haron spots the rather exotic looking woman waving at him and approaches. The wind carrying the smells from her basket to his nose. He carries himself with the confident bearing of a Dragon. "Good afternoon miss. I could not help be smell the wonderful aroma of your basket. I do not mean to be so bold, I apologize in advance. I am looking for an alchemist that is said to have a shop I'm hopeing is nearby. I'm looking for Amethyst, the dragon blooded craftswoman." He gestures to himself, "I am known as Hammering Heron, I am a craftsman myself and am seeing her wisdom. Would you be able to assist me?"
Amethyst	She's not as exotic looking as some of the members of her circle, but she still definitely stands out. She grins at Haron. "I see. Hmmm." She thinks for a bit, ears going down as she considers with the most serious of faces. "Hmm, my memory's a little shaky. But maybe the sound of some silver could remind me." She too carries herself with the certainty of one of the Exalted, and has this tricky smile on her face.
Hammering Heron	Heron nods his head in understanding. "Of course miss, I would be remiss if I did not pay you for the information." He reaches into his coin purse and pulls out 3 dinar. "Will this suffice to help you remember?"
Amethyst	The lady takes the dinar and makes it vanish from her hands into one of the many pouches, almost by sleight of hand. "Yeah I remember her! She's a weird one, but she's really good. Once upon a time she made this really great drug that sent your brain straight into--ehm" She coughs, interrupting herself. "This way." And she leads Heron on. Through the many mazed allies and streets of this quarter of the city, this lady navigates with ease. Then, at the end of one particular street, stands a stone structure, with various colored tapestries outside, one for each element, and all recounting various elemental principles. Upon the top of the door is written the most prominent of all of those, 'As above, so below.' The door to the structure is impressive, clearly designed with safety and security in mind. But! Upon it is a simple sign in the stone, 'Closed' in about half a dozen languages. And with simple grace and ease, the lady taps on the stone in specific places, almost like opening a puzzle box that releases the sign from the stone, allowing her to swap the sign to 'Open'. Then she backs up and gestures to it. "I believe this is the place."
Hammering Heron	Heron is impressed with the building and its construction. It takes him a moment to realize that the woman that lead him through the streets is Amethyst. He shakes his head ruefully. "Of course you are the lady Amethyst. It makes perfect sense now. I do wish to discuss a project I'm working on with you if you have the time." He starts heading towards the door.
Amethyst	Amethyst giggles few a good few seconds. "In the flesh. Come along~" She goes and with a single solid tap, the door gently opens. Inside is almost as impressive, opening up into a well stocked store with various soaps, solvents, mixes, herbs, and remedies. There's a lot that she makes and stocks. Towards the back is a work table with various alchemical apparati and a second door that leads deeper into the building. She goes over, pulls up a chair, kicks back and puts her legs up on the table /around/ the apparati as to not disturb them. "So, Heron, what can lady Amethyst do for you?"
Hammering Heron	Heron steps inside taking in all of the verious items Amethyst has for sale. His eys go wide several times as he recognizes them for what they are. At the mention of his name he turns back to the water dragon "I have been struggling with an oil to apply to some leathers that will needs to do two things. Strengthens the leather properly but also not cause a lion's full to change interesting colors. I was commissioned by a rather large Lionid man for gear for his men and I have been abel to product the oil, only it changes their fur from its usual tawny color to a rather vivid shade of green."
Amethyst	"That's some vivid lionmen." Amethyst says grinning, "Surprised that Raul didn't just ask /me/ to do it. He /knows/ me. Unless you speak of some other large Lionid man." "Anyway, lemme see the oil." She says, going and pulling of some sort of oil herself from some particular cabinet, and bringing it over to her work table. "I'll compare it with my own compound and we can go from there."
Hammering Heron	"I see that you are familiar with the Lionid I spoke of. He was very pleased with the weapons I could make for him and asked for armor for his men as well. He was my first customer requesting a large order so I have been trying to do the more interesting requests he makes." Heron pulls out a crystaline bottle from a pouch and sets it on the counter. "It was only supposed to enhance the strength of the leather. I'm not sure why it was reacting to their fur." He scratches his head thinking. "Is there a sorcerer in his company? Or perhaps they have a lunar patron that visits them and grants them more power?" He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, I'm sure someone would have noticed a lunar running around the city gifting people with mutations."
Amethyst	"Well, hmm." Amethyst starts. She takes the crystaline bottle and pours it into a beaker. "I have a few ideas. One of which is maybe some reagent you've used reacts strangely with hair in general." She plucks one of her own hairs and places it in the beaker with the substance. "If so, it should turn my hair a different color too." "Then, it's just a matter of isolating and replacing that particular reagent with another." Amethyst explains, staring at her work. "If all else fails I /have/ a recipe for strengthening and preserving leather, so either I could make the oil you need or, maybe you can convince me to give it to you. But first let's examine yours."
Hammering Heron	Heron nods his head. "That will help me to understand what I did wrong in the first place. I was an engineer in Lookshy before striking out on my own. Nothing like finding a new place and seeing what you can help peole with." He watchs intently as Amethyst starts her testing on the oil.
Amethyst	As Amethyst examines, her hair does slowly discolor, not as extreme as the lionsmen, but her brilliant violet becomes a duller shade. She nods to herself, and starts making use of all of those beakers and equipment. She pours the oil into various containers. First straining it through increasingly fine meshes to remove any larger and more viscus materials, then lighting a flame and distilling what's left to seperate it out even further. Chaining these processes of filtering, boiling, seperating, trapping, and condensing, soon, she has a series of vials, each with a particular component. She starts to glow as she takes less than dozen hairs from her hair, one for each beaker. With a bit of shaking, the one troublesome reagent reveals itself. She holds up a particular brownish liquid triumphently, "And we have our culprit."
Hammering Heron	Heron watches in fasination at the process that Amethyst uses to reach her conclusion. He leans in and smells the liquid carefully "Ah, that would be juice from Hound's tongue leaves. I had to bruise them before boiling them in hog lard to get the correct consistancy." He frowns after saying it. "I wonder why that would be the cause."
Amethyst	"Here's the thing with Hound's tongue, it's really good at staining. Makes it great for sealing leather. But other sorts of clothing it tends to color strangely. And in addition, using hog's fat makes it /sticky/, easily gumming up and getting and sticking to fur. I see two options. First, we can swap out the hog's fat and Hound's tongue leaves for somethin' like batseed oil. That'll still seal and protect the leather, just without the hair color." "Or, what you could do is char the leather. That'll force the hog's lard to fully dry out and thoroughly bond to the leather so it shouldn't transfer to the soldiers' fur anymore. And it'll give the leather this cool blackened-brown look."
Hammering Heron	"Wow, I didn't think about the staining properties of the hound's tongue or the other properties of the hog lard. You are a genius!" He pulls out a book and a quill. He starts writing in the book without using an ink well. "I think the charing of the leather would go over well with Raullaur as well. It will give his men that extra unique look that he seems to love." "Perhaps we could have lunch or something like that every few weeks to talk shop? I don't get many people that understand the need to create things. I have another project I'm about to start on for a device you can throw at the restless dead and it will cover them in salt. I'm thinking it will burn them.
Amethyst	"Salt warding but with something that dispenses the salt." Amethyst says, "Hmm, and I could use another alchemist to help me from time to time too." Then she contemplates. "There is one condition, maybe two though. I'd like a favor from you."
Hammering Heron	Heron's eyes light up. "I listening. I cannot imagine your conditions will be diagreeable. A fool agrees without hearing them first. Do tell madame."
Amethyst	Amethyst pauses, and contemplates, measuring out her thoughts before she cuts them, working out the inner courage to ask. "I... want help learning how to be a Dragon-Blooded. I've lived largely on my own and with strange Exigents since I Exalted. It's not been too easy learning how to deal with being a Dragon-Blooded with no one around to teach me like they do in the Realm and Lookshy. And I've not much love for either one of them, unfortunately."
Hammering Heron	"It would be my honor to each you what it means to be a one of the Dragon exalts. Did you manage to learn to control the essence fever? I can help you with that as well. I will not try to drag you off to Lookshy to make you enlist in the legion. I did my time in the service and now I travel with my family's blessing." He regards Amethyst unique appearance. "I'm sure the Realm would look down on you for your unique nature. More the loss for them." He makes some more notes in his book. "I'll ask my retainer Elowyn to get some primers together for you."
Amethyst	Amethyst shakes her head, "I've managed to... mmm, I can at least /direct/ it, but the fever is still strong in me. And I appreciate you respecting that I'd rather stay here." "As for the Realm." She sighs, "Let's just say there's a lot of good reasons I don't want anything to do with the Realm. Least of which is the fae-blood that runs through my veins. I'm quite the sorcerer too. Are... sorcerers looked down upon in Lookshy like they are in the Realm?" "Come to think of it, you almost imply they wouldn't mind someone as strange as me among their ranks."
Hammering Heron	"Lookshy has a very different opinion about Dragon blooded than the Realm does. We are encouraged to marry whomever we choose for instance. We don't care if you are a sorcerer. I, myself, and one as well. We also don't take the Immaculate Philosophy as dogmatically as the Realm does. We attempt to emulate the five dragons by upholding their ideals. Honor, Loyalty, Prowess, Compassion, and Resolve." He stops and taps the back of his hand five time. "Sorry about that. I get a little carried away sometimes. We can work on your essence control, I have found meditation helpful. I see you are a water dragon. Have you tried sitting under a waterfall and allowing the essence to just flow through you? Anyway. I should be going. I'll be by in a couple of days after I have the books together so we can start working on challenges together."
Amethyst	Amethyst nods. "That's good to know. The idea of actually sticking to your principles rather than dogmatically shouting that 'The Dragon-blooded are the most pure and you should all obey them'. I was raised on the Immaculate Faith of the Realm. I've found it... lacking outside of their boarders." She shakes her head. "I'll see you in a few days. I'll think about that waterfall thing." She grins. "Take care my new friend."