✥ { CLASS } ----------------------------Charms and Incense

[Valandal]

demon_pachabel

(entering)
Valentino had been fuming since his escape from that paper monstrosity known as the dorm. Revenge would be his soon enough, but for now, class was calling to him. It wasn't by his free will that he was in the class. Something called to him, it was almost as if a siren, singing untold promises, sang to him.

Entering the classroom, Valentino saw that everything in the room was as fragile as the morning dew. By some grace of Jack, Val didn't break, tear, or even smudge a single priceless artifact. However in-between dodging a tapestry and a wooden beam, Valentino found himself stumbling and only caught himself near the head of the circle. Fortuitously there was nobody there, and Valentino didn't make a disaster of himself before the instructor arrived.

Or did he? there was a chill on the back of Valentino's neck, the air around him suddenly felt colder. Turning around, Valentino saw the immaculately dressed Boil who he had met at the trials.

"Invictus?" Valentino's eyes were downcast as his remorseful voice slithered on. How he had hoped to see this boil a successful creation by his side. Invictus had brought out the best in Valentino and he had hoped for the chance to display his best work to the Heir of Conquest. Instead all that remained of franken-fish was in his coat pocket. "The franken-fish was a failure, it turns out that their lungs were never made for toil of tree climbing."

Reaching into his coat pocket, Valentino felt around for the slimy remains of the franken-fish. Invictus had been his muse, it was only proper that he gift the working remains to his inspiration. "I was able to salvage some of the parts however, franken-fish's legs still have great potential!"

Reaching further into his coat, Valentino continued to look for his gift.  

[nekoluch]

[Entering]

Entering the building caused a stir of reactions from Levi. She'd gotten used to large rooms due to Amityville, but this room was also just so very -neat- like the rest of the Conquest Isle. Not to say that the tatzel ghoul didn't like neatness, quite far from this. It was the fact that she grew up in a rather lively farm-like environment that Levi couldn't help but note the organization of things here.

Making her way to a mat beside Xiu, Levi mirrored the baku's manner of sitting on her knees. Smiling, she turned to greet Xiu. Aye, Xiu. Sleep alright?

Like something catching her attention in her peripheral vision, Levi turned to see Invictus there. Ah- so what they'd learn today would be through the heir himself. Knowing Invictus' stealth lessons beforehand, Levi was somewhat put at ease know he was their instructor. Being in the home of the horsemen of conquest, who better to teach them if not the one who represented them at their school? She had learned well under him before and looked forward to what they'd be doing today even moreso now. Her voice kept rather low compared to her usual. Ah- what're... The box on her mat now was the object of her interest.

Levi examined the content curiously.

Kaiyumi

 

[Saliru]

[ ENTERING ]

Nuru wandered into the room and... couldn't take his eyes off the ceiling for a while. Freezing mid walk to just... oogle for a few moments. It took him a while to snap out of it but once he did he rounded around and spotted Zar. Swooping in to steal the mat beside him to sit awkwardly. Smiling so big at the demon it seemed to take up 80% of his face.
 

[demon_pachabel]

"There will not be any firestarting today." the heir answered first to JD, before passing Valentino a look that...really couldn't be described. Franken-frog, hmmm?

Invictus settled in, carefully taking the trays out of the kit - which is identical to the ones he has prepared for each student - organizing them meticulously as he does so. After a moment, he takes out the unscented incense sticks from one compartment, as well as a variety of different ingredients from the bottom compartment.

"For those who are unaware, incenses have been used in ritual for a long time. Even human ritual puts them to use." he explained as he carefully bundled things together, various herbs placed together next to each other. There was a methodology to everything he was doing. "Some are even used in the privacy of the home to bring fortune and luck upon an individual. Even then, each one was said to have a different purpose." The horseman carefully set different 'groupings' together on individual trays from his box before he passed them around so that each student could see which ingredients from their own kit had been placed together.

"For the sake of ease, I have chosen several simple ingredients that can be mixed together in any fashion and yield desirable results." Which basically meant that he was keeping it simple as to prevent anybody from having disastrous results.

Batch 1

Frankincense, Myrrh, Benzoin, Sandalwood, Cinnamon, Rose petals, Vervain, Rosemary, Bay

Batch 2

Frankincense, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Lemon Balm, Citron

Batch 3

Frankincense, Juniper berries, Cumin, Vetivert

"Success, Safety, Calming, Bravery, Strength, Purification... Incenses have many properties to them, and these are simply a few of the ones that hold the most significant meaning in individual households." At least, it seemed that Invictus was making a point to pick things that would appeal to a greater spread of individuals for their own purposes.

Still, once he got his trays back, he carefully set them back down into his tray.

"First, we will make the incense that will be burned in a practice to follow. Then after that, I will speak to you about charms which may be used in junction with incense ritual to maximize their effects." he said briefly as an overview, before he moved to pass around another couple of items for each student to look over.

"Those are Charcoal dust and Gum of Arabic. They will be used to make incense bond together and burn slowly. Like with many cultural arts, the art of preparation is very much a part of ritual, and thus it is necessary to know how to pick scents that complement each other, bond them, and make them burn slow before you use them." As he spoke, he made a point of showing how this was done, pausing between each step to pass around his work so each student could take a look at what he was doing - and even smell it if they so wished - before he moved on, allowing them to look at what they had to work with and see which things would smell nice together.

Step 1

Grind the ingredients down, but do not mix them together. Be careful of their ratio to one another.

Step 2

Mix your ingredients together, along with Charcoal powder.
Make sure to keep an even mix of charcoal powder. Don't add too much, don't add too little. The charcoal powder will give everything the slow burn required for ritual.

Step 3

Using a careful portion of Gum of Arabic, bond your ground up incense together so that it is dry to the touch, but it will also adhere to one of the sticks that were in your kit.

Step 4

Carefully bond the incense to the stick. If it doesn't adhere, carefully put more Gum of Arabic onto it and try again.

Step 5

Let it rest. It takes time to set.

With his explanation mostly done, however, it seemed it was time to actually make some matching from the ingredients chosen and get to work...

When they were done, they could leave for the day and let their handiwork sit.

Proceeding with Classwork!

If you wish to, you -may- roll all of these in one post! Just be careful of which dice lines up with which step in your post, though! You can also roll them separately if you want to interact with other people while working.

Step 1

First Pick your ingredients from the list below:

• Frankincense
  
• Myrrh
  
• Cinnamon
  
• Cedar
  
• Cypress Oil
  
• Bay
  
• Wood Aloe
  
• Coriander
  
• Camphor
  
• Mugwort
  
• Flax
  
• Anise
  
• Cardamom
  
• Chicory
  
• Juniper
  
• Cedarwood Oil
  
• Sandalwood
  
• Benzoin
  
• Mugwort
  
• Dittany of Crete
  
• Rose petals
  
• Vervain
  
• Rosemary
  
• Lemon Balm
  
• Nutmeg
  
• Citron
  
• Juniper berries
  
• Cumin
  
• Vetivert

Second: Roll a 10 sided dice. The higher you roll, the finer you've ground your ingredients.

Step 2

First: Roll 1d10
Second: This is how much Charcoal you added into your incense. The higher the number, the slower it will burn!

Step 3

First: Roll 1d10
Second: This is how much bonding agent you've used to hold your incense together! The lower your number, the more likely it is to not hold together! Oh snaps!

Step 4

First: Roll 1d10 (are we noticing a pattern yet? O_O )
Second: If you roll an even number, the mixture doesn't stick and you will have to try (roll) again! If you roll an odd number, it adheres just fine!

Step 5

First: Roll 1d10
Second: This is how long your student waited on their incense to set. The higher the number, the better the result.

Finally

Post the following at the bottom of your post when you're done rolling:

[b]Step 1 Result:[/b] What Ingredients did you use?
What number did you roll?
[b]Step 2 Result:[/b] What number did you roll?
[b]Step 3 Result:[/b] What number did you roll?
[b]Step 4 Result:[/b] What number did you roll?
[b]Step 5 Result:[/b] What number did you roll?

[quote="Demon_Pachabel"][/quote]

 

[xoxomenai]

Faustus stared at his ingredients long and hard, reaching down to sniff and sample them, before finally settling on the second batch of Frankincense, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Lemon Balm and Citron. Something both sweet and fiery like himself, with a hint of sour. He began to grind them down, each in their separate bowl, achieving a rather fine consistency. He smiled at his handywork. This was actually rather enjoyable and soothing, as all the fresh scents mingling in the room teased at his senses. Eagerly he moved on to his second step.  

[Adomiel]

((Enter))

Auri had followed in behind JD. It DID smell nice in here she thought as she sat down next to him. Building a fire? Really? He hadn't pieced together that it was incense we were making from the smell and punks, she wondered.

She examined her tray as Invictus gave his instructions. She asked herself where the packaging was. Where were the price tags? She got that Invictus was making us do manual labor but where were they planning to sell these, and for how much? She saw the value in them if EVERYONE used them for their rituals. They must have a high demand. The producers must have been able to hike the price up to whatever they needed!

Auri made a mental note for Mr. King. He needed to see if importing more ingredients to the isle could still leave room for a competitive pricing. Auri wasn't really sure how quickly they went through their own supply here on the island.

She listen to the instructions given and decided to go with batch 3. She pulled out the Frankincense, Juniper berries, Cumin, and Vetivert as it was listed. She assumed a shorter list of ingredients would be easier to make.

"Hand grinding... I hope this doesn't stain my nails..." she thought out loud.

She ground the ingredients with little patience and a heavy hand.

"There, that seems decent enough," she stated bluntly.  

[Adomiel]

"Now for the messy stuff.." she said as she reached for the charcoal.

She was very careful no to spill any on herself. She new that the messy powder would never come out of her nailbeds. Auri held her breath and poured the charcoal.

It came out in clumps. She forgot how humid an island could get. Although she managed to get the charcoal in her mixture a decent amount landed on the floor next to it. She hoped no-one had noticed so she wouldn't have to clean it up. Auri shifted on her mat and put the ingredient box on top of the pile of charcoal.

She whistled nonchalantly and reached for the bonding agent.  

[Saliru]

Nuru followed Invi's words very carefully. Repeating each step in his head but now was for the hard part. Choosing his scents.

One by one he sniffed each piece until he settled on something apparently called Juniper Berries which were part of batch three. He picked the batch purely on the scent of these berries so he set to work grinding them first and then the frankincense, cumin, and finally vetivert.

He did a fair job of all four pieces. Enough he showed the demon next to himself with a prideful smile.
 

[xoxomenai]

Faussi's mixing seemed not to be doing as well. As he went to sift the charcoal powder in, his hand caught a little too hard against it, and knocked too much powder into the bowl of ingredients.

"Jackdammit," he cursed quietly under his breath, but continued to scoop and sift the mixture together, tail flicking a bit irritably. Now his incense would burn up like a cluster of dry and dead pines. He grimaced.

Beside him, Amarus seemed to be having similar luck. What's worse, her strange stupor seemed to be making things difficult. Wait, she had swam in the lotus pond?? Had he heard correctly?? It didn't really surprise him though. He chuckled, a smile tweaking across his lips. "Guess you like stirring trouble as much as I do. I just can't seem to find anything I can get by with here ... especially with our natural abilities nulled as they are." He frowned, speaking softly towards her so as not to be overheard, especially by their esteemed teacher, as he moved to his third step.

Face your demons

 

[keiifuu]

step one: grinding.

Ears quirked with curiosity, Fallow quivered with nervous excitement at the prospect of something that... ah, didn't require lecturing to understand. The Púca may not have been good at much, but he fancied himself alright at learning through hands-on things. The exotic scents filling the air only made him all the more fidgety, his tail curving back and forth with anxiety even though he could feel Dev's presence right behind him. Once the heir - Invictus - had left them to their own devices, his ears pulled back, swiveling to her in acknowledgement, and then to Mea as well. "Hello," He rumbled softly in acknowledgement, bowing his head and finding it fun. Others had taken their seats too, and he turned his head from side to side, trying take all of the shapes and sizes and colors in.

His mouth felt empty again. He craved interaction, knowledge, fun.

But this was a class, not a socialization, as much as it pained him to acknowledge that. So many fun little playthings around and he couldn't touch any of them. Rumbling softly under his breath, the Púca tried in vain to still his body and went to work on the first step, his fingers touching and tasting every ingredient that had filled the box in front of him. Deciding that the second batch was to his liking, the Púca began the perilous task of grinding, humming softly and quivering each time a new exotic scent filled the air. Gnawing softly at his lower lip, Fallow settled back into his knees and stared down at the ground up ingredients.

Well.

At least it wasn't that bad.

Alright then... now for step two.  

[Stratham]

(( Rolling all steps at once, will RP in next post! ))  

[Stratham]

(( Ouranos' mixture falls apart on the fourth step gonk Rolling again to clear it... ))  

[Saliru]

((Next 4 rolls))

Nuru then mixed everything together with charcoal, he went a bit too stingy with his charcoal however so it isn't likely going to burn too long, not that he realizes this.

He then added even less of the Gum of Arabic. So little of it that it took him two attempts to get his powder to stay stuck to his stick.