thebastion | Day 311 | Open Broadcast

Entry tags:

rob edwards

Day 311 | Open Broadcast

Who: Rob, anyone
Open: Open
When: Day 311
Where: Everywhere, then Colin's workshop
What: An invitation to learn how to make healing potions.
Format: Will match
Warnings: None?

[So remember that capability the amulets have to broadcast a message to every amulet in the Bastion at once? And remember this guy, who is probably near the bottom of everyone's list on who's most likely to ever use this function? Someone go check if Ibuki made some flying pigs or something, because Rob's making a broadcast here.]

Hey, uh, this is Rob. I've, uh. [A pause, then continuing in a way that's recognizable as someone reading from a script.] So I've been working on teaching myself alchemy using the plants and animals that Paarthurnax has brought in, and I've finally figured out how to make healing potions. I've been thinking that it would probably be a good idea for multiple people to be able to make them, just in case something happens to me or the healers, so I'm wondering if anyone would like to learn how to make them themselves. I wouldn't say it's particularly hard, it just takes some patience and attention to detail. If you're interested in me teaching you, come over to the workshop and bring something to take notes with if you think they'd be helpful.

[A relieved gasp for breath at the end is cut off when Rob ends the broadcast.]

[Sure enough, Rob can be found anxiously waiting outside the workshop. He nods when you walk up.]

You here for the, uh, for the learning about making potions?

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[Otoha's been... around. He knows some potions, but mostly from his world, and only because of the book he picked up. He has it in his hands as he walks over, since he might as well put it in here for reference's sake.]

... Yeah.

[He'll try, at least.]

[A reference book that no-one else will be able to read. Rob's awkward enough at the idea of teaching someone else something, but knowing that Otoha knows some herbalism already makes this even more awkward, like if he were trying to teach Colin algebra.]

Well, uh, c'mon in. There's a lab on the second floor that I've been using.

[He heads inside, past various tools and equipment and Colin's projects, and then up the stairs to the second floor, half of which is a cleanroom and the other half a space filled with laboratory benches and counters. It's obvious where Rob's set up shop; most of the surfaces are clear of equipment, but one section near the stairs has an array of bottled potions, a few jars of various powders labeled in English, a stack of three leatherbound tomes, a small pile of blue mountain flowers and wheat, and various pieces of glassware and other equipment, including a mortar and pestle looking somewhat out of place among all the Science! stuff.]

So, uh, this is where I've been working.

[He looks it over, squinting a little at the labels. He recognizes the language vaguely, but he doesn't know any of those words. But the setup is clean, and it looks like things are organized, so he nods.]

... Yeah. I've mostly just been dropping off stuff at the hospital.

[He only really knew what he was doing when he had instructions and ingredients at hand. Having to come up with them himself has left him kind of lost.]

I don't really know much about medicine, so...

[He shrugs, then picks up the flowers and wheat.]

But, uh, anyways you've probably seen these around the Bastion: blue mountain flowers and wheat. I had the Monument bring them here recently. They're the ingredients you need to make healing potions. Or at least the ones we have here; there's like a dozen that'll work according to these books, but getting plants was cheaper than demons and giant rats. Using blue mountain flower and wheat has the bonus of adding a second effect to the potion: fortifying your health so you can survive more injuries for a short time after drinking it.

Anyways, uh, only the wheat from Paarthurnax's world will work; it's the wheat growing in the eastern part of the Bastion. The wheat growing in the farm won't do anything. I've already tried. So the basic process is to grind up the ingredients and mix them together with water. There's a bunch of details to how you do it, and you won't get a very strong potion without doing a bunch of other stuff to bring out the effects - that's what most of this other equipment is for - but that's the basic concept behind how it's done. The magic seems to be in the plants already, and you can get some of it out with something called "wortcraft", which is basically a special way of chewing, but the alchemy process seems to be what extracts the magic at something closer to its full strength.

I don't either, really. Just what I've been able to pick up from this book and from being patched up so much.

[He listens, and pulls out a pen cartridge he found. He scratches it onto the paper near the back of the book. He does his best to draw pictures of the flowers, but... his art skills leave something to be desired.]

Is it just for healing the actual injury, or does it do something for pain, too?

[It wouldn't make a difference to him, but to other people it probably will.]

I haven't tested it with any major injuries yet for obvious reasons, but with smaller ones it seems to shift the pain to being proportional to the injury, so if it heals a larger wound to a smaller one the pain will change to be what you'd expect from the smaller injury. The healing happens almost instantly so it's hard to analyze what's happening, but it's definitely not like the regeneration potions where it accelerates the pain along with the healing process. On the other hand the regeneration potions probably have the potential to do more total healing over their duration, as well as heal wounds received after the potion's been drunk, but I doubt they act fast enough to be able to save someone from a fatal wound, so there's tradeoffs. It also turns out that the regeneration potions won't prevent scarring, I guess because they're accelerating natural healing instead of outright healing the wound.

[I wonder how he found that out, eh?]

[He... tries to follow that, and he thinks he gets the gist. So it reduces pain, but not totally, and it just speeds up natural healing.]

How long does it take to make one of these?

[The regeneration potions speed up natural healing, but the healing potions work instantly, though who knows exactly how. Until someone is grievously injured though they won't know the full limitations ICly, so everything Rob says is his assumptions.]

Around an hour, I'd say? I've been getting the times down somewhat just through practice, but things like distillation can only move so fast. I'm thinking it should be possible to make one in about half an hour eventually, but I'm not there yet.

Huh... Maybe storing them in containers where they're soaking might help. I had equipment back home, but I don't know how it worked. It was just... there.

[Building things from scratch sounds insane, as is knowing exactly what these things are.]

[If Colin wasn't here with his workshop and database Rob would've had far more trouble getting this equipment set up.]

It might, but I haven't done much experimenting yet. I figure it's better to make sure I can make them at all before I spend time trying to make the process more efficient.

Yeah, I get that. I never even thought that this kind of thing would even work before maybe a week before I showed up here.

Edited 2015-05-25 01:45 (UTC)

[He nods.]

In my world this kind of thing only exists in stories and games. I didn't expect it to be real before I came here.

I thought that's how it was in mine too. Aside from weird people in traditional medicine shops who claimed tiger penis would make you last longer or something.

Yeaaah. There's traditional medicine and then there's traditional superstition. I for one am not particularly interested in consuming tiger penis, even if it did do something.

This alchemy at least I can confirm that it does what it says it does. At this point I think there's 11 different effects we have the ingredients for, though not all of them are as useful as others. Healing is probably the most important one, though getting ingredients for a couple more effects might be a good idea.

I could probably throw in some shards for those... there's a bunch of stuff in this book, too. I just have to go over it since... a lot of it is confusing.

[He didn't ask for this job.]

You... don't have to do that, you know.

[Rob it's not really a gift for you or anything like that...]

My knowledge of herbalism pretty much stops with willow, ginger, and plantain, so I don't think I can be much help there until I get around to reading more about it.

[His somewhat bored and mildly friendly gaze hardens as he stares at Rob. He's not trying to scare him, but he does want to get the point across.]

Look. I'm not exactly in need of anything. And... if I'm going to have the chance to help people, I... guess I should. This isn't my old life anymore. So I need to at least try to... make something of it that's not killing.

[Rob isn't scared by that look, per se, but he's definitely a bit nervous and uncomfortable. He's just not going to mention that it's likely a good chunk of the shards that Otoha is offering came from killing things.

After a moment he pulls out his datapad and unrolls it, tapping at the screen.]

There's a bunch of effects that'd be useful to have around: Cure Disease - self-explanatory, Fear - to drive off monsters, Fortify Carry Weight - lets you carry more stuff, Paralysis - immobilize monsters, Slow - make them move slower, Resist effects to give extra defense against certain kinds of damage, Weakness effects to make monsters easier to damage with different things, Waterbreathing - though that one's probably unnecessary considering how little water there is around, and Fortify effects - they make you better at various things, like sneaking, archery, and bartering.

The Cure Disease effect is a problem, since all the ingredients with the effect come from creatures that'd be problematic to acquire them from for various reasons: vampires, birds, and a giant rat that you have to char its hide correctly before you can use it in alchemy. You could make a magic item that provided a supply of the ingredient, but I'm going to see if I can get books from other parts of Paarthurnax's world that talk about other ingredients that might have the effect, and hopefully one of them will be just a plant. For the other effects I have some lists of what the cheapest ways to get enough ingredients for them are, if you've got any preferences for which effects you'd wanna get.

[Well he's not counting those. Those aren't also people.]

... Resist might be easier. What do you need for those?

[He looks over for a moment, but then gives it up because he can't understand whatever he's got written down.]

[The Gasfellas are, and the Squirts will be, so...]

There's five versions of Resist: Resist Fire, Resist Frost, Resist Magic, Resist Poison, and Resist Shock. We already have the ingredients to make Resist Fire potions, but not the others. Well technically we can make Resist Magic potions too but they'll also poison you and put you to sleep so that doesn't really count. The cheapest way to get the rest would be...

[Tap, tap, tap]

Snowberries, Swamp Fungal Pod, Gleamblossom, and... oh I forgot about that. There's two ways to finish this set off.

The cheapest would be to get Thistles, since they can be used in two of the Resist potions. The problem is their Resist Poison effect is weaker than other ingredients and I'm not sure if that can be compensated for during the alchemy process. Resist Poison's also the one out of the five that's probably the most important here, especially if we go into a swamp again.

The other option is to get both Yellow Mountain Flowers and Purple Mountain Flowers instead. It's one more plant, but I can be more sure about how the potions will turn out.

Either way these ingredients will also allow for other potions we can't make right now: Paralysis, Fear, some kind of poison that depletes magical power, and either Fortify Heavy Armor for the Thistle option or both Fortify Restoration - healing magic - and Fortify Sneak for the Yellow and Purple Mountain Flower option. They're all small plants, so it'll be either 400 or 500 shards.

[He'd personally spend the extra hundred shards here, both so he can be sure the potions will work and also for the Fortify effects, but he's not going to outright ask for the more expensive option when someone else is footing the bill.]

[Not Bastion people, then.]

Why not get thistle and the other two? It'll only take a few more days of gathering shards. I probably have enough to help make up the difference in my room right now. It'd make it easier to make more helpful potions, right?

Not... really? Thistle still does pretty much the same things as the other two, except for being able to make Fortify Heavy Armor potions instead of the other two Fortify effects, so, like, to make you better at fighting in those suits of metal armor you see in museums. Well it's also part of a Ravage Stamina potion but that's just a way to cause needless suffering that I don't plan on ever making. It's kind of a waste of shards to do both, really.

Got it. I can still help make up the difference. I don't exactly need shards for much of anything. Maybe something to sharpen my sword with, but that's it.

Ultimately it's up to you, since they're your shards, but I personally wouldn't bother with the thistle.

Sure. I can help buy the other flowers, though.

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