Felazo's Expirementation Seeking Good Help

Felazo finds himself rather surprised. When he picked up the runaway noble and the governmental priest, he’d expected a lot of things. None of them were particularly great. And yet, he still picked them up and brought them along. Sometimes his curiosity gets the better of his common sense. One of the better things he did expect was some interesting diversion when they were upon the longer hungering currents, and in this, his new compatriots proved well suited. The human one, the Sister of the Darian Order blessed Hilan, had many intriguing questions about the mystical world, as well as interesting and not incorrect perspectives to contribute. Though the gentleman does oft now wonder how it is with all these questions, the sister doesn’t yet know the question she’s actually looking for. The noble pretending to be a hunter, scion of Tise’el, does not often contribute to the pair’s more philosophical and theoretical discussions, but she knows a few things. And, when it comes to the sister’s more societal questions, ones of holdings and desires of the world and its people, she learned more in her childhood schoolroom than most learn in their lifetime. Due to being a part, albeit a distant part, of the court of the King who Rages. And while that’s nice for the sister, what Felazo has come to enjoy about the presence of the scion of Tise’el is less on what she was born into and more about what she pretends to be. It’s the second morning of the third separate hungering current in a row. For most people, one of the great boredoms of hungerings is also part of the dual reasons for their name. The current is so strong and moves so little, the fish that do live in the hungering zones have developed to be quite strong, so they can do what the caravans do not and move against that hungering. Which in turn means, again for most people, the fish out here are more liable to snap the rope than be pulled out with the rod. Hence, hungering. And yet…

“Who’s ready for some breakfast?” Alessari asks from atop the deck. Because, as she has the last three mornings we have awakened, hungering or not, Alessari brought in some fish.

Felazo looks up from his morning musings and sighs. He is hungry, after all. But he also has business to do first. And, if the last few days are any indication, Alessari will be cooking things up regardless of the response of her traveling companions. For the next minute, the elf began a ritual of sorts. The floor was so dirty and Hilan had complained the night before about dust on one of the bookshelves Felazo hadn’t looked at in a few months. So, he took a minute to make a helper. Someone to dust and sweep and take one bit of frustrating menial and boring tasks off his own plate. As Felazo finishes the ritual, he gets an interesting idea about a possible next move, a new experiment to try, but ignores it for the moment. After telling his unseen dust sweeper to do the dusting, Felazo heads up to the deck. Alessari is sitting by her oven, working to cook up the fish as appetizingly as she can. And while she’s more than capable of cooking the food to be healthy, she lacks the practice and refinement to make the food taste wonderful as well. Felazo blames it on her spending her youth being cooked for by servants, but he also recognizes that is a bias he holds against most forms of nobility in the world and how they treat their children. By the prow is Sister Hilan. From the direction the Sister is facing, her daily prayers are coming near to the end. Felazo approaches the other elf. “So, how goes the meal today?” he wonders aloud.

Alessari looks up at him. “Took you long enough. I brought in a pretty good haul this morning.”

Felazo looks at the fish that Alessari has cooking. She’s right, it’s probably enough for a couple days worth of rations. Or, knowing the not-quite noble lady, a real good day of eating. “Impressive. I’d ask how, but that’s probably a really boring answer about nature and hard work and paying attention that I will half listen to as I think on my new experiment, then forget by this afternoon. Still, impressive nonetheless.” Felazo nods along as his mind moves on, back to his experiment. Beyond the materials, simple enough, it also likely would need something to bond the what, well creature’s not really the right word for it, maybe creation to his will. The fish’s flesh sizzles as it cooks. Some of his own blood, suffuse with life essence maybe? If the elfish mage’s blood were to be the core component of the creation’s flesh that should make the creation something like an extension of himself.

It’s at this point that Felazo realizes Alessari has indeed been talking this whole time. “- but the real key is patience,” she finishes what was undoubtedly her explanation of fishing. “See, not boring.”

Felazo smiles. “I’ll take your word for it,” he replies.

The scion of Tise’el looks at him askance. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I just had a brilliant idea earlier and then the searing fish flesh gave me a way to complete and perfect the idea. It’s gonna be great, trust me.”

Hilan comes over, having finished her prayers. “How goes it over here?” she asks politely.

“Felazo ignored me to think about frying fish,” Alessari explains.

This makes the Sea elf crack a smile. “Not entirely inaccurate,” he replies jokingly. “Experiment on my mind. Anything new come to you this morning?”

Hilan shakes her head. “Nothing new. Though I do begin to wonder how much longer this journ shall take.”

Felazo smiles. “Haven’t been out at sea this long before? Worry not, this particular hungering comes to its end tonight, which reminds me, if you can get sleep during the day so I can use your muscles to deal with the coming ebbings. Then, we have those ebbings which, if my maths are correct, should take us to a stillness off the coast of the Isle that houses Nelgin. From there we’ll take a night to rest, then row our way to some flows that should take us into a um well, the sort of port that I frequent but my caravan doesn’t. If you catch my drift. So, three days or so?”

“Why not just go to Nelgin?” Hilan asks.

Alessari chuckles. “Because you are incapable of lying and the Authority isn’t the biggest fan of Emissaries of the Cold Fist. Remember last century when one of you tried to convert one of their city-states by encouraging the breaking of their whole stratified society. They haven’t forgiven that yet.”

Felazo smiles, nods, and adds, “Yes that. Also there are some people in that city that don’t appreciate me much personally, due to some, let’s call them philosophical differences. Anyways, this other settlement has a great bar, and someone who could consistently get me new books. You want to learn anything about this area of Vyrroltea, it’s the place to go.”

Alessari pulls out the cooked fish. “Here you go, fresh and ready.”

They look bland, though not bad. And Felazo, at least, has a solution for blandness. Trying to be subtle about it, Felazo adds some hand gestures and chants to his speech. “These… look… great,” he says, muttering mystical words in between each word. From the looks on everyone’s faces, he was not subtle enough. However, when he takes a bite, it is indeed delicious.

“Really?” Alessari replies to the not-hidden actions, “Is my cooking so bad you need to use magic to make it better.”

Sister Hilan happily eats her serving. “No,” she says, “Though you do not use much in the way of spice, I believe that more to be the fault of the one who stocked this ship’s hold.”

“Hey, when I want to spice things up, I spice them up. I don’t need something as space wasting and able to go bad as actual spices. That’s the whole point of magic - to do things the easy way and look good doing it,” Felazo insists. These people, they know so much about a lot of things, but when it comes to the real heart of it, they can’t know about what they can’t do. Magic is one of them things that you have to have a feel for it to understand why it’s so awesome. Otherwise, it’ll just seem self-indulgent at times.

“Whatever you say,” Alessari replies. And they eat.

As he finishes, Felazo stands up, stretching and cracking his back just a bit. “Alright, well, I’m headed down to my desk to do some evil-laughter-inducing magical scientific experimentation. You guys be good while I’m gone. Also, remember what I said about getting some sleep today, I won’t care how tired you are tonight, the moment we hit those ebbings, I will be barking orders at you. Ta ta.” He spins around flamboyantly, because what’s the point of being able to look good doing things if you don’t enjoy yourself a little along the way.

From behind him, Felazo can hear the sighs and groan. He’s guessing the groan is Alessari’s, Hilan doesn’t really seem the groaning type. Good, perfect response. Because it is a response. Means they’re paying attention to him. With a smile he heads down into his cabin, to the table of wakefulness. This experiment will take hours, might as well do it and get some sleep at the same time. Bringing his alchemical materials and reagents to the desk, along with a pestle, some vials, a cup, and of course a knife, he gets to work.

It takes him four hours, and two cups of blood to finally get it right. But, eventually, Felazo’s experiment comes to fruition. Sitting on the table, calmly awaiting his instructions, is an actual living thing. A small, bald monkey-like creature whose flesh seems to match his own in tone. And hairlessness. “Alright, my newest helper,” he says to the not-quite-a-monkey, “Come, hop on my shoulder, I’ll show you off to the other.” The not-quite-a-monkey does, indeed, hop onto Felazo’s shoulder and look around. Felazo smiles “I shall call you Kalzia, alright buddy?”

Kalzia squeaks approvingly. Felazo brings him outside his lab. In the bed, Alessari is sleeping. Hilan is not in the hammock, however. Felazo heads up to the deck to see if she’s there. She is, sitting calmly watching the water. “Sister Hilan,” Felazo says, “How goes the day?”

Sister Hilan smiles. “Slowly. But with Alessari sleeping and you at work, I figured someone should keep watch. Just in case of monsters.” She turns to face the elf.

Felazo nods. “Good thinking. Speaking of monsters, come meet my alchemical abomination. This is Kalzia and, in spite of all appearances, it’s not a monkey.”

“Really?” Hilan asks as she approaches, “What is it then?”

“Technically, it would be my flesh crafted out of things that aren’t my flesh. In proper mad-scientist fashion, I wanted some help in the lab, so instead of hiring people or asking someone, I went and created life out of reagents and other mystic materials. And my blood, of course, hence its wonderful skin.” Kalzia squeaks approvingly at Felazo’s mention of their wonderful skin.

“Fascinating. Can you understand these squeaks, or is it more an extension of your new body where you just can command it with ease to do tasks, but must interpret whatever its reactions might mean?”

“The latter, though I can tell what it’s feeling with the squeaks. Like, right now, it’s still happy with me, probably because I made it and it likes being in existence and alive. We’ll see if this keeps up when I’m working with it on other dastardly experiments and creations.”

“That is intriguing. Perhaps it being made of your flesh but given separate life created some kind of empathic bond between you. Like some wizards get with their cats when they use the beasts to aid in the empowering of spells.” Hilan poses.

Felazo nods. The woman may not know as much as he does, but she still does know a lot. “Indeed, that’s likely the case. Well, you go get some rest, we can keep watch for the moment. After all, I’ve got a spare set of eyes now.” Kalzia laughs. It can tell that Felazo is joking. Finally, Felazo thinks, someone on this boat has my sense of humor.