Doku reaches her laboratory with the attendant, while the quarantine warden, palace examiner, guards, and clerks remain at the intake. Mistress Vale has sent word ahead.
Vale waits beside the warded worktable, holding a sealed case of concentrated toxin and an unfinished counteragent. Master Oren and Healer Tamsin stand behind her.
Mistress Vale
The toxin follows our earlier purification work, Lady Nohara. Its counteragent is stable only through the third stage.
A masked clerk, a slight young adult figure in layered brown robes with gloved hands, has arranged clean glassware beneath the ward-lamps. Every instrument remains untouched.
Master Oren
I would bind the compound inside a balancing ward before testing it. A force this concentrated may answer to more than flesh.
Healer Tamsin
The observations are incomplete, but the pattern is consistent. When the black vessel’s signal is mentioned, the case vibrates.
Vale says the vessel’s signal again. A faint tremor passes through the sealed case, stirring the liquid within; the warded table answers with one dim pulse, awaiting Doku’s examination.
✓ Quest Accepted
Make the toxin’s counteragent reliable
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine how the black vessel’s signal affects the toxin
“I check how the black vessel signal affects the toxin and then create a counteragent for the toxins.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Healing, rolled +1)
Doku places the sealed toxin case beside the warded table and aligns it with the black vessel’s recorded resonance, keeping both containers closed. The signal answers with a measured pulse.
Doku Nohara
The signal accelerates the toxin’s binding phase, but leaves its final reaction unchanged.
She observes three pulses through the ward-lamps, then adds a trace of the unfinished counteragent to a separate sample. The liquid steadies whenever the vessel’s resonance fades.
Healer Tamsin
The pattern is reproducible. The signal does not create the toxin’s action; it forces the unstable counteragent past its safe timing.
Doku recalculates the stages, separating the binding draught from the stabilizing salts and adding a neutralizing herb before the resonance can accelerate either mixture.
Mistress Vale
That holds through the third stage, Lady Nohara. The counteragent remains stable even while the black vessel answers.
The completed counteragent clears the test sample’s reaction and stays inert beside the pulsing vessel. Vale seals the formula, while Tamsin records the signal-sensitive timing and Oren reinforces the table’s wards.
Quest Complete
Make the toxin’s counteragent reliable
Quest Complete
Determine how the black vessel’s signal affects the toxin