Nyugelle squeezes the Honeyed Hand's hand and says, "I hope so. She deserves it! They all do."
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Stepping in behind Gianluca is Nyugelle. Her locks are much longer than when she'd taken off for the Expanse, and are braided together down her back. She wears a airy yellow and black patterned dress in the current Zenj style, and a necklace of large, gold disks (each engraved with alchemical symbols). Her face (which previously had that recently incarnated freshness seems to have aged a great deal as well...but her expression has a peace to it that Nyugusk's tusky maw never had. She nods to her old companions. "Cladissa, you look..."primped and perfumed and uncomfortable...and yet also, genuinely..."quite regal!" "And Argor...It's been a looong time, eh?" A long time, and another world...a world where ALL of us had the serum coursing through our veins. At the time, I was so sure that that was my Irorian path to Perfection. Now... She reaches out a hand in greeting, and then looks down at her chymical-stained hands and pulls them back, self-consciously.
"Thanks! And yes, planned. I started brewing bump-bane for myself shortly after I was reincarnated...and we both decided together to stop taking it last month. I didn't really expect to conceive this quickly though! "As to how I am...it's strange. Funny, really. Of all the ways I've sought to transmogrify myself, this takes it to a whole new level. Nothing else compares." Turning to her tumor familiar, she adds, "No offense, Huk Huk. "So far, physically, I've been feeling sick the last few mornings, though alchemy helps with that too. "Really, it doesn't feel too real yet, but I know that it is."
Nyugelle and Gianluca emerge from their chamber mid-morning, and join their fellow pathfinders for breakfast. As Nyugelle bites into a buttered corn cake (and Huk Huk sits on the table beside her, slurping jam from a dish) the former Freak says, ”Gianluca tells me that the Society is safe again! Congratulations! I knew you had it in you. It still feels odd to have retired from that life, but honestly more and more right as well. I’ve been able to approach my research with a clearer head than ever I could in my old life. “And...well...there’s another reason for me to stay out of the fray now.” She pats her belly. ”Gianluca and I are expecting!”
Nyug smiles (at Argor, or her own Alchemical success, or both). "I'm glad to see you back too...and would be fascinated to hear what your experience of all of that was. When you're ready."
With a smile, Nyugelle says "We may have to come back to that. I want to act quickly now." Next she pours in a small vial of holy water. The Argoo fizzes and bubbles with a momentary frenzy, but then seems to settle down again. "OK then, blood time." Nyugelle holds her dagger over a flame to disinfect it, and then drops in a drop of her own blood. Then she repeats the process with Gianluca and Cladissa.
"Sabrina," Nyugelle replies. "You're a true friend to Argor...and the gods know he doesn't have many. That said, I'd like to see your condition stabilize first before adding in another potentially wild vari--YOW!!" She leaps back shaking her hand as a vial is incinerated right from out of her hand. "Ummm, I guess we better act fast. Here." She drops in the molten tin and then steps back, but is pleased to see that nothing shoots out of the Argoo this time.
Nyugelle gives a grim nod as she hears Cladissa's report of her psychic contact. "That's pretty much as I'd feared. That said, I--cautiously--believe there's hope. You see, he also seems quite...malleable...influenceable right now. If we can inject things that could not only stabilize but guide him, we may yet save his life. "Here. I plan to start with heat plus tin--a classic stabilizer combination in chymestry. Next some holy water as a way to combat any demonic taint. Then, Gianluca had the brilliant idea of adding some fluids born from an act of true and loving passion which we've, ahem, managed to procure." The alchemist gives a sly grin as she holds up a beaker. "Finally, I think Argoo may respond well to some alchemical essence of friendship. For that, I plan to use a drop of blood from myself and Gianluca, and would love to use one from you as well. "Finally, I think it's very important that we keep Rutai away from him until he stabilizes. I see no reason to suspect that influence from a devil--or any outsider, frankly--would help him to ground and find a new equilibrium."
He may be an evil, child-murdering pile of goo...but he's Argoo.
Nyugelle hears Gianluca's distressed call and rushes out of her lab. While Rutai lays the cocoon on Nyug's table, Nyugelle and Gianluca clear room on the floor for Sabrina, who still seems to be fading in and out. "Hang in there Sabrina. You too Argoo, if you can hear me." says the formerly mutated alchemist. She takes a blood sample from Sabrina and a goo sample from Argoo, heats them over two burners, and begins muttering. "Oh! Fascinating. I think...maybe...I can see what's going on here. Maybe if..." Nyugelle, turns to Rutai and shooes him out of her lab. "Out with you! I'll report back when I know more." After the imp is gone, she whispers to Gianluca, "I'm not sure that it can really even be called Argor anymore, but something in this Argoo is still alive. Both body and mind are in Flux thanks to the serum and his broken mental state. If, IF he is able to recover from this, what emerges is uncertain. But the goo seems very impressionable and alterable right now. Perhaps if we add a bit of your own blood, Gianluca? Or some of this holy water?"
Sitting at a small marble table in the courtyard, Nyugelle and Gianluca look up from their game of cards, curious about the conversation.
Nyugelle appreciates the Lady Farwynd's kindness, though it does little to pierce her self-reproach. She does her best to smile at the earnest knight's praise. "I...thanks. We...I was glad to help. I...I wish I was still of more help." she grimaces briefly. "But anyway, you're courting Cladissa now. That's sweet. She deserves a nice guy, and I know she's happy about you, so I am too. Good to meet you." Nyugelle gives Sir Preston a quick smile and then she glances down at her handbag as if considering taking out some of the papers in it, and then thinking better of it.
Nyug nods her head to the Lady Farwynd. "It's a, uh, pleasure to meet you too. I mean see, not meet. Again." The former half-orc bites her lip in frustration.
Nyugelle arrives in a colorful Garundi dress and head wrap. She is as nervous and out of place in social settings as she was back when she was Nyugusk: trying hard to not look as uncomfortable as she is, and failing. The only difference was the presence of her old friend and lover, and she does her best to stand close to Gianluca...and to resist the urge to pull out her papers to scribble new notes and ideas.
"Something else? What? More demons? Argor? What is it now?" Nyugelle asks, starting to look a bit tense.
Nyugelle's mouth makes a silent 'O' and then frowns, concern evident. "I've...um...I've been really wrapped up in my research since I...since I was reincarnated." She pats her body, still clearly feeling somewhat out of place in it (in a way that was never evident after bouts of Nyug's old mutations). "Oh f$~$, I've always been a bit stiff and removed, haven't I? People aren't so easy for me, and my mind usually drifts back to formulae before too long." She winces a bit as she admits the truth. "I'm still no good with people. Except maybe Gianluca--or maybe he's just so good with me that it doesn't matter." a mischievous smile flashes across her face. "But look. I'm...if I can be your friend right now somehow...let me know. I hate how rough you've had it, from all angles."
Nyugelle's eyes go wide at Sabrina's revelation. "That's not magic, that's the formula, I'm sure of it! Isn't that right?" She turns at Cladissa's comment and walks over to squeeze Cladissa's hand. "Oh. I know the last time didn't end well. Are things...OK?"
Nyugelle's first few days in her new body are rough ones. She has long periods of foul self-criticism for so badly bungling her research, embarrassment at having literally exploded over everyone...and (worst of all) a chilling sense of loss at no longer having the serum in her veins. Glumly, she states, "It was...it was my path to Self-Perfection. At least I thought it was. Was I wrong about everything? "I know I'll never be as good at meditating and martial discipline as my sister. If chymistry isn't the answer, what is?" She appreciates attempts to cheer her up, but also finds herself excusing herself quickly from group conversations, preferring to talk one-on-one if at all.
Skin as fresh as a newly unfurled leaf-bud, Nyugelle Newblossom is born. She takes in a few frantic breaths--as though she's trying to figure out how breathing works in this new body--and looks around with wide eyes, filled with wonder and confusion. When Gianluca approaches, she wraps herself around him, digging her fingers into his back and sobbing. She says to her childhood friend. "What happened to you? You look...even more angelic than you used to...but why?" After Gianluca explains that the serum seems to have transferred to him, the newborn Newblossom clings even tighter to him. "So...you get your own shot at this now? Was that my gift to you?" Shaking her head, another wave of tears washes over her and she looks at her companions, "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry. I thought I had the answers but I...I failed you." |