24 Nov 2024, 23:30
The Shared Braincell
date 15th–18th october, before the fall ball, 2024 / activity potions championship - black fire potion / pings @Zach Zaphiere & @Raizel Voltrouz
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| Potions weren't exactly Alyssea's strong suit, but with enough time to consider joining the Championship, she settled on participating with her usual friends. She could trust Zach and Raizel (when neither of them were being chaotic). After some adrenaline-filled chats and stumbling over ideas, the three of them settled on the Black Fire Potion to prepare for the final task. Alyssea didn't remember much about Ashwinders (if they'd ever learnt it at all) aside from her experience of seeing them in Broom Racing. Ashwinder eggs could catch fire, so, a potion that could help them avoid the burns altogether would be a boon. Alyssea read over the potion's instructions and hummed, pencil hovering over her notes. They'd spent long enough together that, despite Zach being a prefect and all three of them being sports captains, only she could actually be trusted to stop them from dissolving into chaos. "Right, okay, ingredients. It's not much so can one of you grab it? I'm going to set up the cauldron and stuff here." Cauldron, heat, mortar and pestle, stirring rod, spoons, paper towels... That was it, wasn't it? Oh—and of course, wands, too. Once she'd neatly set everything up on their table, Alyssea wrote names beside each step of the process. "I'm going to crush the mint and wartcaps. Zach, can you slice the mushrooms? And Rai, can you measure the salamander blood? That way, everything's prepared when we have to put it in," Alyssea said. She paused and waited for them to approve her suggestion before setting off on her own task. First, she took the three mint sprigs and put them right into the mortar, crushing them into a paste as the instructions told her to. Crushing things were fun until they made your arm sore. Once a considerable paste formed, she took a teaspoon, scooped the right amount of the mint paste from the mortar, and put it into the cauldron. |
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“I hope she'll be a fool — that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
25 Nov 2024, 06:56
The Shared Braincell
When Zach heard about Potions Championships, he was super excited. How could he not be excited? Potions was one of his favorite subjects. Well, it was only the healing potions that caught his interest, but potions brewing is potions brewing. Another good thing about this event is he was in the same team as Alyssea and Raizel.
After some discussions about what potions they should brew, they started to divide their parts. Actually, Alyssea was the one who divided the parts and also had the leader role of the group. If it was Zach, there was a high chance that he would turn the team into something chaotic.
Zach grabbed all the ingredients that were needed, with the instruction from the Hufflepuff. He approached the giant shelves, his eyes squinted to look for the ingredient. “Bursting Mushrooms… Bursting Mushrooms…” he mumbled the name until he saw the thing: white stalk and red cap with some white spots. “I should be careful when handling it,” he said, reminding himself to be careful to not explode his own hands. After he got the ingredient, he walked back to the team’s station.
Zach took out his protective gloves before Alyssea told them her suggestion. Zach nodded, a gesture of his approval. He took out his protective gloves and wore them to handle the mushroom. He also grabbed a knife to slice the thing. It was actually not explosive but Zach just wanted to be safe. He didn’t want to ruin his job and make his team lose just because of his clumsiness.
He saw Alyssea had done her job in handling the mint paste. Didn’t want to fall behind, Zach sliced the mushrooms very fine and put them into the cauldron after the paste was put. Then he stirred the mixture thrice in a clockwise manner, waving his wand and set his mechanical timer to ten minutes. After that, the Ravenclaw looked at the Gryffindor to do her job.
@Alyssea Brown @Raizel Voltrouz
WC 326
25 Nov 2024, 12:36
The Shared Braincell
Banner made by the wonderful Alyssea Brown
Interactions ❯❯ @Zach Zaphiere | @Alyssea Brown | @
Mentions ❯❯ @ | @ | @
❂《 ⌜ Sometime in October ▎ At some day before the Fall Ball ⌟▛▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔With how things went the past few days, Raizel had been in need of some kind of distraction and when she heard about this Potion Championships, she thought that’d be a nice way to busy herself aside from her usual routine. The only problem was… it’s a group activity. It’s not like she minds it but with how things are, she’d rather not participate with a bunch of random strangers. She doesn’t need more stress in dealing with people when she’s not in the right mood for it. Lucky for her, she’s not participating with randoms but with some of her few close friends, namely, Alyssea and Zach.
She couldn’t trust herself in leading this group, she could barely trust her brewing skills at the moment due to her current state of mind. Good thing that Alyssea was in charge. She could rely on her in keeping her inline and maybe, Zach too as the Ravenclaw boy tend to do things that rivals her own chaotic energy whenever she gets too carried away with things.
First things first, ingredients. Here she hopes that her focus is enough to do things right. She was sleepy and almost spaced out when Alyssea addressed her to do something. “Huh? Oh, yeah.” she answered, hoping that her cousin didn’t notice how she wasn’t paying that much attention for just a few minutes. That is what she gets for not getting enough sleep lately. She said something about Salamander blood. She checked the instructions, just in case, recalling how they had decided to brew the Black Fire Potion. Maybe she should brew some of these for her own personal use.
In any case, she went to do her job and that’s to measure 1 fluid ounce of that Salamander Blood. How did they get this ingredient, she wondered, watching how her companions started their own tasks and went on to do their part in this potion brewing. While waiting for them, she took a quick glance at the instruction once more, adding that Salamander Blood into the mixture when it was time for it and began stirring it in a counter-clockwise direction 8 times. “That should do it.” she said to the other two, taking a step back to let them add what else was needed.
▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▟⌜ The Shared Braincell ⌟ | ⌜ WC: 381/200 ⌟
««««« Dialogue | #800000
INVENTORY
Robe]
Wand
Oziel Toussaint | Miharu Goto
STA: 7| EVA: 12| STR: 3| WIS: 12| ARC: 10| ACC: 13
Perfectionist I | Fearless | Wandmaker | Terrible Presence
26 Nov 2024, 05:56
The Shared Braincell
date 15th–18th october, before the fall ball, 2024 / activity potions championship - black fire potion / pings @Zach Zaphiere & @Raizel Voltrouz
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| Before Alyssea could actually crush the two dried wartcaps, she needed to wipe the mortar and pestle clean from the leftover mint paste. She took a paper towel, folded it haphazardly, then threw it away once the mint paste had been cleared from the mortar and pestle. No good for the mint to make the powder from the wartcaps sticky when she needed it finely ground. All while she ground the wartcaps into a fine powder, she kept an eye on Zach and Raizel's progress. Zach had done his part of stirring and waving his wand around as expected, then set a timer which Alyssea also kept an eye on. She double-checked the instructions. Once ten minutes were up, she quickly said, "Don't forget to turn down the heat a little before the Salamander blood goes in", before leaning over and turning it down herself. Alyssea let Raizel do her thing with the Salamander blood and stirring before stepping in to dump all of the wartcap powder she ground up. She quickly mumbled something about Raizel holding onto the stirring rod and Zach holding onto his wand as she continued the process. One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three... Alyssea counted the twenty seconds as evenly as possible with the verbal trick she'd learned. One thousand and seventeen, one thousand and eighteen, one thousand and nineteen, one thousand and twenty! Then immediately turned off the heat. "Right, stir seven times clockwise, wave wand, and then we bottle it up. Let's get cracking." |
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“I hope she'll be a fool — that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
26 Nov 2024, 10:53
The Shared Braincell
Zach nodded. He was calm. Was this a bad sign? Like a calm beach before the Tsunami comes? Or was he just really focused? But Zach just nodded. He did nothing for the next ten minutes except look at Alyssea and Raizel doing their part in brewing the potions. Raizel measured the Salamander Blood to the exact one measure.
When the timer rang, Zach lowered the heat to a slight simmer. "Raizel, I think you can put the blood here." It was a really weird sentence to say to your friend. Some muggles would suspect Zach being a member of some cult if he said it there. Then he let the rest be done by his team.
Zach walked around their corner. Looking at how Alyssea and Raizel doing their job. He sometimes hummed Hoggy Warty Hogwarts. He also nudged Alyssea and booped Raizel when he felt bored and stopped when one of them glared at him. He ran playfully and emitted a mischievous "Hehehehe". He looked around to see other contestants, their rivals. He judged them heavily, putting some comments on "how to do it right", while his comment wasn't really the right one. He did it like a famous cooking judge on a cooking variety show that he saw when he was home. That was how he spent his time until the potion was almost ready.
After Raizel stirred the mixture for seven times clockwise, Zach took out his wand again. He waved the wand above the cauldron and said, "It's done." He smiled proudly. It was just a matter of time to see if the potion was a success or not. He never brewed a potion with other people and this made him really about the result. With Alyssea and Raizel, Zach bottled the Black Fire Potion in the vials.
@Alyssea Brown @Raizel Voltrouz
WC 303
26 Nov 2024, 11:56
The Shared Braincell
Banner made by the wonderful Alyssea Brown
Interactions ❯❯ @Zach Zaphiere | @Alyssea Brown | @
Mentions ❯❯ @ | @ | @
❂《 ⌜ Sometime in October ▎ At some day before the Fall Ball ⌟▛▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔If there is one thing that she couldn’t be trusted, it’d be the timing of things, especially in a state where her mind tends to wander somewhere else in which she is doing her best to fight. Maybe after this, she could take a quick nap because she really feels sleepy, hoping that the nightmares she had been experiencing wouldn’t come to visit her. Good thing that Alyssea and Zach are there to remind her of when to add that Salamander Blood and then went to the stirring part.
When all of her tasks are done, she has some time to kill while she waits for the others to finish theirs, watching Alyssea add the rest of the ingredients into the cauldron, watching it before letting out a yawn. It was now a waiting game for them and she would love to lay down right now. Occasional boops from the bored Ravenclaw boy helped in keeping her awake but that didn’t save him from the same death glare that she gave him when he accidentally hit her during Divination Class. As always, he was just being mischievous. In a way, she was glad to see him doing well compared to her.
Raizel had almost forgotten the last thing she should be doing if it wasn’t for Alyssea telling her and lucky for her, she kept her hold on that stirring rod despite being so distracted from everything else, even missing her cousin’s reminder about it earlier. “Right, right.” She went to stir once more, putting those weak arms into good use. Stirring shouldn’t be that hard anyway even for someone like her. Seven times, clockwise and that should be it. All that’s left was a wave of a wand in which Zach did. The potion was done. Who needs protective gloves when pouring it into a vial though?
She does, they all do so that's what she did, putting them on before helping out with the transfer of potions into the vials. “So far so good I guess?” She chuckled.
▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▟⌜ The Shared Braincell ⌟ | ⌜ WC: 340/200 ⌟
««««« Dialogue | #800000
INVENTORY
Wand
Oziel Toussaint | Miharu Goto
STA: 7| EVA: 12| STR: 3| WIS: 12| ARC: 10| ACC: 13
Perfectionist I | Fearless | Wandmaker | Terrible Presence