[locked] ascend the fires and salted earth
In the space of several days, Iris (with more than a little help from Hermione) has managed to turn the standard, dingy, one-person dorm room at the Kashtta into... well, a significantly more cluttered, distinctly anachronistic-looking one-person dorm room. The small cot and mini-fridge look strangely displaced, now, next to the storage jars of odd ingredients, the festoons of herbs hung up to dry, and, in pride of place, the cauldron: a vast black receptacle of hammered iron, its contents kept at a permanent simmer by the fire pit beneath it. Its repetitive bubbling lends a soothing atmosphere, the distant hum of traffic and other sundry city noises cleanly covered by the rhythmic sound.
If there were such a thing as a Kashtta Tower Health and Safety Department, they'd likely throw a fit and a half at the fact that she's constructed a large open fire pit in one of the first-floor dorms. But there isn't, so it'll probably go unnoticed, until some point in the distant future when another Wanderer gets rented this room and finds just one more thing to wonder about.
The books Hermione gave her are thick with makeshift bookmarks and spread out around her bedding, which at some point in time seems to have migrated from the cot and onto the floor, finding a warm spot next to the cauldron. A little too warm, maybe, and certainly another fire hazard, but she likes to fall asleep amidst her work. Especially nowadays, when the depths of her mind are thick with nightmares waiting to swell - there's nothing like a good book of magic theory to drive those off, nothing like immersing herself in reassuring patterns and forms. She was glad to find that the methods of Hermione's world were not, fundamentally, all that different from those of her own, both in theory and in practice. A potion is a potion, it seems, pretty much wherever you go.
She likes that. It's another comforting thing, another familiarity amidst the chaos. She's normally pretty good with change, but over the span of less than a week, one can only take so much.
Speaking of potions, that's really what she should be focusing on right now. She did, after all, invite Hermione over to help her work on a few recipes, things she wants to try and reconstruct in this world to help the people of Chicago. With the CLF hunting down Wanderers, this place needs every healing elixir and warding charm it can get. She goes to prep the cauldron, where another of her nascent works is in progress: the ruby-hued crystal, the proto-Philosopher's Stone, now slowly reforming in a basin over the cauldron after another rarefication of its structure.
It can stand being set aside to cool, for a little while, before she puts it through again. There's nowhere to set the basin down where it won't be seen, but she at least hopes she won't be asked too many questions.
Just then, there's a knock at her door. "Just a moment!", she calls out, wiping the worst of the cauldron-smudge from her face and taking a quick glance at the sun. Hermione's not early; Iris just lost track of time. Well, that happens. She gathers up her bedthings and throws them onto the cot, just to clear space around the vessel, and cracks the door open.
"Hey, glad you came." She greets her friend with a bright smile, the scent of burning sulphur all about. Just another day.
If there were such a thing as a Kashtta Tower Health and Safety Department, they'd likely throw a fit and a half at the fact that she's constructed a large open fire pit in one of the first-floor dorms. But there isn't, so it'll probably go unnoticed, until some point in the distant future when another Wanderer gets rented this room and finds just one more thing to wonder about.
The books Hermione gave her are thick with makeshift bookmarks and spread out around her bedding, which at some point in time seems to have migrated from the cot and onto the floor, finding a warm spot next to the cauldron. A little too warm, maybe, and certainly another fire hazard, but she likes to fall asleep amidst her work. Especially nowadays, when the depths of her mind are thick with nightmares waiting to swell - there's nothing like a good book of magic theory to drive those off, nothing like immersing herself in reassuring patterns and forms. She was glad to find that the methods of Hermione's world were not, fundamentally, all that different from those of her own, both in theory and in practice. A potion is a potion, it seems, pretty much wherever you go.
She likes that. It's another comforting thing, another familiarity amidst the chaos. She's normally pretty good with change, but over the span of less than a week, one can only take so much.
Speaking of potions, that's really what she should be focusing on right now. She did, after all, invite Hermione over to help her work on a few recipes, things she wants to try and reconstruct in this world to help the people of Chicago. With the CLF hunting down Wanderers, this place needs every healing elixir and warding charm it can get. She goes to prep the cauldron, where another of her nascent works is in progress: the ruby-hued crystal, the proto-Philosopher's Stone, now slowly reforming in a basin over the cauldron after another rarefication of its structure.
It can stand being set aside to cool, for a little while, before she puts it through again. There's nowhere to set the basin down where it won't be seen, but she at least hopes she won't be asked too many questions.
Just then, there's a knock at her door. "Just a moment!", she calls out, wiping the worst of the cauldron-smudge from her face and taking a quick glance at the sun. Hermione's not early; Iris just lost track of time. Well, that happens. She gathers up her bedthings and throws them onto the cot, just to clear space around the vessel, and cracks the door open.
"Hey, glad you came." She greets her friend with a bright smile, the scent of burning sulphur all about. Just another day.