lab day

[ratiocinations]

Who: Holmes and YOU!
When: Sept 29
Where: A random classroom
What: Holmes is overseeing a chemistry class. Everyone gets to mix solutions and get points for doing it!
Warnings: Mild lab accidents

[Today, you will find that Holmes has commandeered an empty classroom and turned it into a chemistry lab. Of a sort. There are tables with chemistry sets spread around, and a lot of scribbling on the whiteboard that serves as an explanation behind the science, the methods, the various intended results, and what they indicate. They range from basic to relatively advanced. I am not a chemistry person, so I am skipping the details, but use your imagination!

If you are lucky, you catch him either at the beginning or end of his lecture, which might make your understanding of what’s on the whiteboard clearer. That said, he is an odd teacher — fascinating to watch, but whether or not he instructs in a manner that makes it all stick is debatable. He rarely goes over problems more than once, and there is an air that he expects his “students” to understand in one go.

Near the end, he says:]

Now then, we will treat this class as a ramshackle laboratory. Upon each table is an experiment, which I expect you to conduct as I’ve taught. Move from the first table onward, then report back to me.

Don’t dally, now.

(( OOC: The INSTRUCTIONS are pretty simple:

-Start at Table 1, and follow the instructions to roll a die.
-Comment with your result.
-Wait for me to reply with either a success or a failure with very mild consequences. Feel free to thread with others/threadjack at any time during the process!
-Move on to the next table until the end!
-Get 50 points for doing an experiment! Yay!!))

Comments

[ratiocinations]

[Well, that's about the normal experience, he's come to learn. Mr Mamoru seems to have taken it in stride, at least.]

Ah, but have you ever tried your hand at chemistry before today?

[isdf]

No, this was the first time. It is . . . difficult.

[At least food didn't blow up on him when he cooked. Chemistry is far less forgiving.]

[ratiocinations]

Indeed, it is. But for your first attempt, you did admirably. Even I sometimes make a mess of the last table if my focus wanders elsewhere.

[So! Be proud. He has learnt that so many people here are very hard on themselves gosh]

[isdf]

[His focus was wholly there, and he still messed up the table before it. While it rankles, he can at least rest with the knowledge that this isn't what he was made to do.

His gaze falls on the book in Holmes' possession.]

You have quite the hobby for a book seller.

[ratiocinations]

[Knowing this might come up, he quirks his smile while he hands Mr Mamoru a set of enamel pins.]

Would it surprise you to learn that I studied chemistry very extensively in my university days?

[isdf]

[Taking the set with both hands, he momentarily scrutinizes them on his palm. Are those faces?]

Not at all. Some of the most clever researchers I met worked in the entertainment industry.

[ratiocinations]

[They are! Aren't they cute.]

Entertainment industry? I wouldn't think you rubbed elbows much in those circles, Mr Mamoru.

[isdf]

[They're something.]

That's correct. It was a single company whose business funded its research into dragons and slaying them. The agency I was a part of collaborated with them for a time.

[ratiocinations]

[help]

Now that's an odd connection, indeed. Was its entertainment dragon-slaying related, as well?

[isdf]

Yes. Their most popular product was a simulation using virtual reality based on the Dragon Calamity. It was also a front to seek out and train potential dragon hunters.

[ratiocinations]

Dragons must be quite the problem in your world, then. If you've an event called the... Dragon Calamity in your history.

[isdf]

They were responsible for the destructions of countless planets and the near extermination of mankind on multiple occasions. They sowed life, only to destroy it in the end.

[ratiocinations]

[Was this related to the memory he saw from him, then?]

For what purpose? Cruelty alone?

[isdf]

For evolution.

Dragons seek the strongest life form. Once that existence comes into being, the hunter who eliminated all the dragons becomes a dragon in turn, devours the universe, and births it anew to repeat the cycle.

[ratiocinations]

[Evolution? What sort of evolution requires utter destruction first and foremost?

It's clear from his face that Holmes finds htis notion uttelry dubious for a myriad of reasons; and partly because he suspects this is quite connected to the memory he viewed of Mr Mamoru's.]

That is a rather worrisome way of instigating evolution.

Is there not a way for the hunter to avoid this fate?

[isdf]

Once a dragon descends on a planet, the process has already begun for its people.

[The survival of the fittest results in everyone else's demise. Still, his brow eases ever so slightly at the thought of the true hunter.]

However . . . I believe my teammates will find a way.

[ratiocinations]

Your comrades back home?

[It sounds like a rather difficult problem to solve, and Holmes certainly has no advice on the matter.]

I can only hope that is the case. Might I ask... about the memory you shared with me previously? Was what I experienced at all related to the dragons themselves?

[isdf]

[He nods at the first question, then falls quiet at the next few that follow.]

Yes. It was a process that involved injecting dragon genes into my brain in order to strengthen my performance.

[ratiocinations]

[This continues to be a fraught subject, doesn't it?]

And you felt precisely what those dragons did, too, didn't you? At the time of... destruction.

[isdf]

[It's simply another day ending in y.]

. . . Indeed. With the final installation, I inherited the memories of several powerful dragons. What "we" witnessed were their conquests of countless planets since the universe's conception.

[ratiocinations]

And in what possible way do such memories "strengthen" your performance?

[To Holmes, it just sounds like it would... distract at best, and make him understand at worst.]

[isdf]

[For these particular memories . . . in no way.]

The memories were a mere part of the specimens to acquire combat information. My composition was also adjusted with each installation to perform up to those specifications.