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A short, wiry man leaned back against a flattish boulder-face, enjoying the relative cool. His 'camp', such as it was, had kept the sun off, and even constant humidity hadn't warmed this shaded portion much. Adjusting from climate to climate had been... rough, at times. The wet was an old friend, but since taking up in his rickety cart, Aire had learned a lot of practical lessons in a hurry. He was still a city boy, and most hunters could put him to shame, but there were a few tricks he'd found necessary to his chosen field, out on the go like this. Alchemy didn't much travel, so certain things had needed replacing. Multiple times. Just 'til he got the hang of it. But things were better now, really! Sure, he still slept on a pile of insulation instead of a proper bedroll, and couldn't get the odd chemical smell off his skin anymore, but his equipment hadn't broken in days! The bugs had figured out he was inedible!

Best of all, he'd found an excellent spot in which to run tests on his latest efforts! A long stretch of tumbled boulders and stony terrain, possibly what used to be a hill. 'Til some battle magic had destroyed it, from the look of things. A skirmish in the most recent Oban war, not unusual on Fire-country's border. So as not to bother the locals, the Belrean chymist kept clear of the battle's mass graves, not wishing to disturb the dead directly. The noise, on the other hand... well, the dead slept deeply. They wouldn't wake for anything this minor. On that note, the redheaded young man pushed off the stone, his break over. This was to be the fourth sample today,and if the humidity hadn't affected it yet, it'd do fine. Probably.

Picking his way between the stones, broken-nosed Aire crouched down and began unwinding his fuse. About a foot off, his escape route planned, and all there was to do was take flint and steel to the end. It had gone relatively well twice already, two satisfying detonations achieved. Striking metal and stone together, he worked at setting the twined end

Aaand a successful lighting! Flint and steel could take up to fifteen minutes to get a good fire going, even when your tinderbox was well-dried. Sulfur wasn't in high enough demand for striking-sticks to be common hereabouts. No active volcanoes nearby, either. Not in Jauhar, anyway. But the fuse was lit, and he had exactly one minute to-
"I'm sorry for disturbing you!"
Oh, he thought. Oh no. She was too close, whoever this stranger was. Too close, too much potential shrapnel if it proved a success! This was the biggest payload so far, and minimum safety range was at least three times the projected blast radius even with adequate cover!

High-strung at the best of times, Aire could at least react quickly. They both needed to get to cover, and she had no idea what was going on. Quick on his feet, the redhead slipped and juked his way around the stone field towards her. At least this potential townie was on her feet; made things easier. Pursued as she expected to be, the Belrean had one thing going for him in his mad dash. She couldn't mistake him for hostile, not with that look of silent panic. The silence didn't last long once he was near enough to steer the larger earthling. "Notaproblembutweneedtomoverightnow! Behindthatbigstoneplease!" Behind him, the chymist's ears could hear precious seconds sizzling away...

"Lessthanthirtysecondsleftgottamove!" Had the woman resisted, there really wasn't much he could've done about it. Aire was not firmly built under his yellow hide, nor well-fed enough to be at all weighty. Pushing people around was not a skill he'd ever had cause to develop. Luckily, regularly practiced running kept him in fairly good condition. They reached the boulder with a handful of seconds to spare. It took some few of these seconds after taking cover that the foreign young man could speak without gasping. More from relief and residual fear than poor conditioning.

Of course, he wouldn't get many out. "It's one of-" A detonation exceeding any other in recent weeks ripped the sounds away from his mouth and the tanned woman's ear. Like to a magonel-shot and crumbling masonry, but condensed into a bare few moments. Terrible and mercifully brief Once it ended, the chymist plucked a pair of waxen plugs from his ears and peeked around the stone to survey his results. The destruction on display brought a wide grin to his face, still pale from the recent fright. Another successful mix! "It's one of my latest samples. I finally got this compound out of formula and ready for physical trials."

Unexpected as an audience had been, he hadn't had more ear protection on hand. Otherwise Aaricia's new 'acquaintance might have offered up at least the one beforehand. And I wouldn't have someone shouting in my ear. ...On second thought, she might have done anyway. Starting to notice a pattern developing between otherwise reasonable people and my experiments. Looking back to the woman, he crouched down, digging through his apron and withdrawing a phial of reddish liquid. Another moment digging brought a homemade eyedropper.

Speaking clearly and facing her, the redheaded chymist mimed squeezing drops over his own ears. "This is a healing potion. I need to administer some to your ears, because the blast damaged them. Will you keep still, please, or do you want to do it yourself?" Though still breathing hard himself, medical issues seemed to be tagged with a higher priority than his own fight or flight responses. Should she allow it, he'd either drop the draught into her ears or offer the dropper and phial.

Two drops dripped first in her left ear, and the ringing would slowly be replaced by a tickle while her eardrum mended, the silence falling away bit by bit. Once she'd had a chance to feel it work, the young foreigner applied his medicine to the right ear. "Not too long. A touch of healing essence bound to a thinned honey base turns the trick neatly. Made sure this mix evaporates within a minute of contact with open air, so it won't block up after. I had to cook this up after blowing out my own ears the first few times." The process wasn't so simple, but what details he shared were accurate enough. Alchemy ran along scientific and magical principles together.

Once its purpose was done, the phial had been corked and slipped back in its place. The last of the mix dropped on a rare patch of earth without stones. "All right, then. Now that you can hear me, let's. Let's." The paleness of his face had given way to trembling in his arms and legs. Putting his left palm to it, Aire used the stone to support himself and sank to his knees. Rather more quietly, he muttered to himself. "R-right. Didn't die, I can answer these. Um. Where to begin...?" Deep breaths, Aire, nobody is hurt, everyone's fine. "F-first question, right. It was an explosive compound I've been testing."

At this point, the eastern lad was beginning to think that his teacher had been right. Adrenalin wasn't supposed to dump quite this quickly. There might well have been an imbalance of the humours necessary to good health. Emergency focus broken, and now the world came in screaming dozens of details all at once, several making up that speech thing that he needed to do. Not answering questions about something that had nearly killed the both of them was liable to have consequences. Think. Breathe and think. You can do both of those, Aire, you've done them for years! "Thank... Thank you for listening and not arguing when we had to run. Sometimes people don't, and I have to think of something else on the fly. Blast radius aside, the rock-shards alone would've been lethal with that one. I keep my testing out in sites like this so that nobody gets hurt.

...Did I put the signs up today? I thought I had." His head shook, setting the thick braid a-rustling briefly against his back. His breath was coming back to him, bit by bit. Which sort of post-rush state would win out had yet to be seen, manic or obsessive. Perhaps it would even be a lucky day and neither popped up! "I usually put up signs around my sites, pictograms and such. Got to keep moving to find new materials to use, so they're a necessity. ...I didn't forget them, this time, did I? I'm still getting a solid set of data for this compound." Green eyes closed, and the redhead began a rehearsed breathing exercise. In through the nose, out through the mouth, deep breaths.

By the third set, thin lips had curled up into a crooked upward curve. There was even a little laughter nibbling at the edges of his breath. Mania it is, then. "Terribly rude of me, I. I've gone and put your life at risk, and I've not even asked your name. Aire, of Belrea." He looked up, putting a slightly-singed glove out to shake.

The handshake seemed to ground him a little more, and soon enough his breath evened out, the wild gleam dimming in his eye. "Aari. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. No, afraid that chemical demolitions are still an unexplored science as yet. The alchemists guild still blows up every few months, but that's almost all accidentally. Their main focus of late is metallurgical research, or so I hear." His head shook once more, and the apron-clad chymist hauled himself to his feet. "Mostly they humor my research, since I'm all the way out here and not likely to bother them with something 'magic's been doing for years!'."

Here it actually sank in that she hadn't seen any signs set. That drained his emerging good humor like a hole at the wrong end of a mug. "Stars and stones. I didn't?! Ugh, I've gone and got complacent, then! Could well've been someone less cooperative! Might be, next time I pull that coprolite! ...Going to need to think of up a mnemonic for this, no help for it." About halfway through, his rant seemed to direct itself inward. Aire almost looked the stereotypical Belrean inventor for a moment, pacing and lost in his own thoughts. He blinked, and remembered his manners. "Went and did it again, I do apologize. Been traveling for a few months now and I'm not much used to company anymore. My tent is just yonder; would you like a drink out of the heat? In the way of a more solid apology."

In fairness, the blast itself hadn't caused all of this destruction. On examination, multiple scorch marks surrounded a central point. His chosen location for this batch, most likely. He had made mention of several more tests today, this being the latest. "Right this way then, Ma'am." On the short walk back, he continued his part of their peculiar conversation, veering between monolog and dialog. "Aye, but devastation isn't the point! Pure destructive power is easy, once you know how, but it isn't safe. When I say 'unexplored', I mean in controlling, not just causing them. The alchemists guild keeps a cheap roof for good reason."

His tent, at this point, was more of a lean-to. The Belrean had set his cart against one of the larger boulders and hammered a couple spikes into the cracks to start. The whole thing wound up a bit lopsided, but it managed stability and shade. Not dry, of course, but this was Jauhar. Dry wasn't in the picture. Inside, and arranged within the cart were his instruments, glassware, bundles of herbs and preserved animal parts. Three wool-wrapped bundles lay on the edge, marked with different colors of flower under the binding cord. A waterskin was produced, and handed over. No seats but a small stool, so the resident took to leaning against the stone. "So! What would you like to know first?"