Meandering Thoughts, Meandering Eyes [Day 1, LE]

[Tamori Baiko]

"Secret? Oh, no. Nothing of that sort. No, my specialization is biochemistry, psychoactives, that sort of thing. Components which induce altered states of perception." Baiko expounded, giving something of a petit lecture.

"This planet, as you can imagine, is a major hub for both research and acquisition of such components. So, naturally..."

She trailed off, doing as most teaching academics would do - the remainder of the explanation was an exercise left to the reader.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki sat through all of it, and she was nigh sure throughout the monk certainly wasn't going to stop her. Perhaps, in some way, that made her exhaustive explanation perfect. However, what it did allow, was for the perfect opportunity for Koyuki to notice that she had been drinking far too much, far too fast, and to switch out for a water instead. Which she also emptied by the time that Baiko came to her resounding finish. A finish with which, the Kuni host of this little rag-tag group of folk said,

"Do you have any that you are proud for having worked on, Tamori-sama?" she asks, innocent as a babe. She was not innocent as a babe.

[Taiguno]

He smiles at the explanation of Baiko's work. "I think the folks down at the Shrine of Passion potntially would not be fans of your research Tamori-sama. And while that's where I'm staying for now, I'd likely disagree with my fellow monks. Using chemicals to alter one's perception of the world sounds like an interesting field to study. So much of how we understand the world is based on perception, so altering it seems like an intriguing way to explore reality. But I am curious and would echo Kuni-sama's question."

After all, somewhere out there, whether just hypothetical or real, there was likely a perfect drug.

[Tamori Baiko]

Baiko nodded along as her conversation partners responded, closing her eyes and furrowing her brow in thought.

"Something I was proud of. Hmm. Hard to say, really. Divine alchemy is a very personal field; simpler items within its repertoire can be mass produced, but truly great creations - those are bespoke, created to fit a unique need for a certain person."

She shrugs. "A lot of it is because divine alchemy has internet and external components. Sure, klajj-root, jajji-vine, or the bezoar from a Arashakan ape are all parts of things I make, but so is the person who takes the ingredients in - so external components and the internal component. I advised a patient once to take some medicine I had made in a cool room with a calm heart so as to aid them with their anxiety-caused stomach pains; they ended up taking it before a meeting of some importance."

"The good news is their stomach ulcers healed wonderfully, though from my understanding the outburst caused by the unexpected psychoactive reaction was talked about for many seasons. Many thousands of koku worth of damage but no one got hurt - permanently." Baiko noted proudly. "Everyone got to learn from that experience: the patient learned to follow doctor's orders, their clan learned that divine alchemy can make an otherwise frail person surprisingly...resilient. While I got lots of very useful data for the art -and- science of divine alchemy."

[Kuni Koyuki]

"That is a remarkably detached and analytical approach to that situation, Tamori-sama," she remarked, without hint of judgement or approval. Simply being. Taking her drink into hand she gave pause with a drawn out sip from her glass. Remarking internally to herself on how while her first impressions of the woman were perhaps not all that accurate, they also weren't wrong in the slightest. Baiko was a woman one best be careful around for entirely different reasons than she had originally anticipated.

Nothing like finding out what the miracles of 'Divine Alchemy' might perform with a front row seat to the action, most likely. Something, duly avoided, yet- "What brings you to the world of dreams? Is this your home location?"

[Taiguno]

"That is quite the story, Tamori-sama. Sounds like you just have to isolate a few side effects to create a medicine perfect for it's use. And to boot, discovering that side effect opens up a door to performance enhancing substances. A stroke of good fortune that you made such a discovery," the monk replies with a soft smile.

[Tamori Baiko]

"Herein I shall list an array of formulae whereby the seat of intelligence may be loosed from its mooring; whereby eternal love and unholy fear wait at the end of a needle; whereby the soul may be plunged, a passive spectator, amid a thousand hells, a million heavens, and a host of earthly, psychic and astral vistas besides." Baiko intoned the quotation from rote memory.

"That's from the preface of the Great Scroll of Formulae by Tamori Kiuko, from the 16th century. A seminal work in divine alchemy, Taiguno-san. So, yes, just as you say! The practitioners of this art have been at it since the dawn of my family and we'll be at it for another ten thousand years. That's our search for perfection."

"And, as you asked, Kuni-san, research brings me here. The World of Dreams has much to offer to someone knowledgeable in my craft: so many fine psychoactives and of such quality. I've been here for quite. Some. Time." She drew out the last word, as if to emphasize that she had been assigned to the World of Dreams and was no recent arrival. She did not consider herself an expatriate but had perhaps been dumped here for unknown, to her, reasons.

[Kuni Koyuki]

"I am a storied woman," she says, almost as if breaking the moment. Glancing between the other two she measures them, the slight narrowing of her eyes as she tries to gauge how correct exactly she is. With a quick nod, she raises a hand and waves over one of the many staff on hand to accept orders and requests. "I am certain Taiguno-san here is a storied individual, and you Tamori-sama are most certainly a storied woman. Why don't we spend the next while, story for story of our most ridiculous encounters?"

Koyuki poses the question to the group, and what their answers were might not necessarily matter. What matters most, is that what happens from this point is pleasant and done in good company with good booze in an establishment of quality. By the end of the evening the three had a few laughs, to what extent each was prone to laugh, and at least a few new good times shared.

/scene

[Thank you both, sorry for all the waiting!]

[Tamori Baiko]

/scene

[Good to meet you both IC, thanks for the scene!]

[Taiguno]

/scene

(Thanks!)