The first time Uquin saw the ‘keldari’, he thought little of the strange little creature. Scaled and semitransparent, the legless creature was reclusive, kept in a woven basket by the trader who plucked it from its den and held it aloft for the crowd to see. As curious hands touched its scales, in awe over the glowing bones within it, the keldari wiggled and made a curious clinking and rustling sound with its coned tail, but it was utterly constrained. Others in the clearing beneath the trees, watching this tradesman, standing on their toes, craning to see the creature, but Uquin remained in the back, arms crossed as he watched, unimpressed.

It wasn’t until the trader pressed the keldari’s face against a thin sheet of leather, stretched over a cup, that its danger presented itself. In a flash, the snake shot forward, puncturing through the leather with long, curved fangs in what was sure to be a painful, bloody bite, but not life threatening in and of itself. Wrestled back into its basket, the trader flashed the crowd a grin, and tugged the top off the cup - to reveal a sickly colored, milky liquid within.

“This,” He began, tilting the cup for the crowd to see, “Is poison. One bite could kill you - so although rather pretty, this is not a household familiar for your younglings.” Smirking, he stowed the cup away and turned to his next creature of intrigue - but Uquin had seen enough.

A venomous creature was intriguing, but also concerning. As a healer and amateur apothecary, his first thought turned to how to deal with such an injury. What were the symptoms? How did you treat such a thing? While he hoped his concerns were unfounded, Uquin only had to look at the prevalence of northerners with Oban and Matori familiars to know the risk. Some idiot would go out there and bring home a strange western creature, only to let it loose. It was only a matter of time.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think that it would happen so SOON. Only days after the show in the square, Uquin descended with a basket to the ground level to find a crowd of settlers, warily milling about, eyeing the surrounding brush suspiciously. “Do I want to know what this is about?” He drawled, coming to stand beside a neighbor. The portly middle aged woman laughed bitterly, then shook her head, giving Uquin a concerned look. “That keldari thing got loose - be a good lad, and keep your Padma up in the treelines for a bit, she’s just the airy sort to go stepping on something like that.”

Tossing his eyes skyward, Uquin groaned to himself and hoped the spirits wouldn’t take offense at the tangle of his thoughts. Adjusting the basket, he turned to the small, but well worn path through the trees, sweeping his eye across it - although, luckily, there was no keldari in sight. His garden was horridly overgrown - which was to be expected, since he hadn’t had much chance to prune it after his recent trading trip to Sauti. The brambles and thorny vines, especially, had crept up the edge of the small storage shack that he had built at the base of a tree. Once, he had critiqued an old healer for the dilapidation of his home, but now he felt guiltily reminded of it. Setting the basket aside, Uquin knelt by the edge of the brambles, reaching to assess the readiness of a plump pod amidst of a thrush of bright pink crystalline grasses - only to freeze. A husky shuffle of clacking stones, reminding him of a darker parody of an infant’s rattle came from his blind side, the right - and as he retracted his hand and shifted his gaze, he saw it. Nestled amidst the grasses was the keldari, its jewel-like eyes focused on him. Coiled backwards into itself, its tail rose from the ground and rattled, once more, then paused, watching as he drew his hand slowly backwards. It would be safest, he realized, to just step away and let it slink off - alone, it could live but could disappear into the wild. But then he would always worry about its presence, and it would only take one more loose keldari to start a sweeping epidemic of venomous vipers.

Leaning backwards, further from the wary beast, Uquin reached to his belt, where his beads lay, and wrapped them around his knuckles. He would have liked to blast it with fire, to be rid of it - but it was nestled against the network of grasses that made the bulbs he and Padma relied on, and he didn’t fancy destroying his own garden trying to quell it. Instead, holding his breath in hopes it would work, Uquin cast a spell of water at it - then tossed the basket on top of it while it was stunned.

Somehow, the ploy worked - the snake tried to wriggle out from beneath the basket, but once he’d held it down harder it resorted to its telltale rattling. It was harder to convince himself to leave it alone, when it could wriggle out from beneath its cage - but with a handful of heavy sacks on top to keep it contained, Uquin finally braved the walk back to the settlement, bringing the trader back with him, who carried a hooked rod - and, together, they somehow managed to wrangle it back into the woven container that it had first escaped from.

“Do something to keep it contained, would you?” Uquin growled, glaring accusingly at the rattling from within the case. “Yes yes, of course, ser.” The trader retorted, breathless but relieved to have his property returned to him. Wrestling it back into his cart, the man paused, then pulled something from his bag, holding it out for Uquin to take. “That’s the blasted thing’s poison - and quite a bit of it too. You only need say...er, a few drops of it to test what a bite would be like.” He explained as Uquin took the closed phial, grunting in acceptance of the explanation. “I don’t expect it to get loose again, but - you’re a healer, aint’cha? Maybe you can figure something out.” Grinning, the trader returned to his cart, willing to get as far from Yera as he could - and while his dismissive reaction annoyed Uquin, as he peered at the vial and gave it a careful swirl he had to admit it was a relief to have something to test at his disposal.