Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rose wondered is you could faint from a majority of your blood being concentrated in your face. That actually may be worth looking into later. Rose had begun to start to stammer out something along the lines of "You don't have to behave yourself! Now you've gotten me curious! " but her British accent decided that resurfacing was a wise idea and coupled with a few other factors, it resulted in it sounding like something vaguely Germanic. Rose gave up about six words in after she realized the sound coming from her mouth were not an understandable form of English.

Well she could always ask him to show her later... But not before finding out what he had discovered in his research. Rose was admittedly a bit curious about that as well.

Rose, with a face still about as red as some of her namesakes, accepted Cain's brief smooch, and then quickly polished off the rest of her plate. If lunch was this good, then she couldn't wait for it to happen.

Rose for up and went to the temporary lab/spare bedroom to get to work herself. After making sure she had everything, she cracked open the coconut and poured its liquid into a glass bottle large enough to accommodate for it. Rose had already memorized the ratios for this trial, and in a matter of moments, it was ready.

The liquid was a bit thick, and was an off-gray color... It didn't really look like the other trials at all. In a moment of inspiration, she decided to add a few drops of her blood and actively try to assimilate the liquid rather than letting the blood take care of it itself. The wound on her palm had mostly healed up, but the one on her thumb was pretty easy to open up again for just a few drops.

Rose exhaled sharply through her nose at the final result. She was actually almost surprised enough to drop the bottle. Luckily that didn't happen. It looked...Red. The same dark red that healthy blood had. That was impossible, science said a color change on that scale required a chemical reaction. Magic said it was probable though.

Rose sniffed the bottle to see what it smelled like... Blood. Precisely like blood. Or it did to her nose anyway, she'd have to get Cain to have a sniff to be certain. Her nose was certainly less reliable than his.

If this was what she naturally assumed it to be, this was big. Really, really big. The applications, and the implications were enormous, vampires may not need to use the donor system anymore, blood transfusions would be possible, her own research would be eased, no longer bound by the amount she had in her veins.

Holy. Hell. This was what she had been waiting for.

Rose poured a bit into a smaller bottle and then stoppered the larger one. Rose quickly made her way into the bedroom were Cain was changing, she poked her head in and said "If it's not too much trouble, could you tell me what it smells like before you go? "

Rosabel Marcellus

Rose thought about this and nodded a bit. "Alright then. Thank you!" Rose reached up and kissed him on the nose. What was making it smell floral? Maybe the coconut water was reacting with her magic? Either way, this called for putting it under a microscope for a careful examination, and then seeing if it had enough "kick" to jump start spells the way her blood did. Rose practically skipped from the room back to the makeshift lab, testing the substances was where the real fun was!

From the shelf space she had claimed as hers, she hefted a large brown book in a brown calf-skin cover. On the cover, there was a perfect replication of her tattoo embossed in silver. There was a clasp keeping the book shut, and anyone stupid enough to try and force it open would find that the unusual binding on it was not happy to be disturbed. The last guy (besides the standard flesh wounds inflicted upon him) had been completely knocked out from the sheer pressure her spell had decided to exert on his brain. That move had actually surprised Rose a bit, she knew the spell was supposed to grow more powerful the longer she lived, but for it to do something beyond what she had set it to do... She was just as interested in her book's development as any one of her other projects. The spell was rumored to give items sentience after a century or so, and Rose had tried to talk to it before, but so far it had remained silent. Well she had plenty of time to wait and see...

But you always ask a witch before looking through their books. Particularly when they had dedicated part of their career to the placing and breaking of spells on such objects.

Rose hummed as she flipped through her grimoire, she hadn't looked through it in awhile, it was like greeting an old friend. She flipped past her own half-developed spells and straight to the section of spells that she had altered so rather than raw magical power (which she didn't really have) it required a few extra words either written on the floor, a piece of paper, or just tagged onto the end of the incantation, a few drops of blood, sometimes specific sorts of marrow or inscribed knuckle bones, all in all it was pretty solid stuff. Scrying was pretty easy, she'd have to try that first. And there was minimal chance that something would implode/explode so it was a good place to start.

Rose opened up her current lab journal and began to update it before she got any further, recording every fact was essential.

Rosabel Marcellus

Scrying had proven a bit more difficult than she had anticipated, the liquid was much harder than blood to dissolve in water, it would probably work well as a weapon though. Rose stared at the mirror-like surface of the water, a bit more focus and it should turn from pink to silver... One of her locks of hair escaped from behind her ear and dipped itself into the water. Rose frowned as she saw the resultant ripples, and promptly tied her hair back into a high ponytail using an odd bit f black ribbon. Her hair taken care of, she refocused getting the spell right. She re-spoke the incantation, which happened to be an odd mix of greek, latin, and celtic words. The grammar was questionable, but magic didn't always follow modern constructs.

Then, as if an invisible switch was flipped, the pinkish surface of the water became a perfect mirror. Rose smiled, but now what to scry... Why not Cain? He was probably in the library, and it would be interesting to see what he did when no one else was around. Rose focused her mind on the stacks, and the image in the bowl shifted to a bird's-eye view of the library. Hm. No Cain. Perhaps he was dawdling in the garden?

No Cain. Maybe he had wandered off into one of the hallways?

Her forehead wrinkled as she mentally ran through the halls at top speed, no sign of Cain anywhere. She paid no heed to the people rushing about, someone had probably broken something valuable or messy and a clean-up effort was being initiated.

Her forehead's wrinkles deepened now not from concentration, but rather in concern. If she couldn't figure out his location by simply looking for him, she was just going to have to directly scry him rather than just his location.

The mirror went dark. Not a single shard of light...Wherever he was, her magic couldn't reach him. Was he somewhere where there were wards up to prevent scrying? It wasn't to terribly improbable that the library had a room set off to the side for documents that were for only a few people's eyes...

It was worrying still, perhaps she should head down there herself. Rose flicked the side of the bowl to effectively turn off the spell, surprisingly, the liquid completely splashed out of the bowl and soaked her sweater. Immediately, she wriggled out of it, she had no intention of being damp for the next few hours. Ah, now she could smell that light floral scent Cain was describing, it kinda smelled like jasmine, no lavender? Hm. Another question begging for an answer, but the question of where Cain was a bit more pressing.

Slightly harried, she searched through her sweaters and jackets until she found a suitable charcoal blazer. Not too thick, not too thin, ample pocket space. Perfect. Rose returned to the her current workspace to clean up a bit, just to make sure she didn't leave open a bottle of chlorine gas or something...

Was this really worth her worry though? It did seem a bit silly, he would probably tell her whatever he was working on when he got back... Her chain of action derailed, Rose absent-mindedly flipped through her book again, it would be better to not waste time and just test out a few more spells... Hm, there was an older one for sealing books shut she hadn't done in a while. Maybe she'd try that...
Wearing:This

Rosabel Marcellus

Rose blinked once at the news, the only outward sign of her shock at the news was the large bottle of her experiment dropping to the floor. It shattered. Rose blinked again, and felt a slash of panic tear through her chest. It was like the Black Forest all over again. Her breathing sped up, then she closed her eyes, exhaled sharply and repeated the mantra Compartmentalize, survive in her head. Panicking wasn't going to solve anything. She pursed her lips, raised the hand that had dropped the bottle and snapped. The liquid, still containing all of the glass fragments immediately coiled around her right bicep like a very wet studded ribbon.

When Rose opened her eyes, her panic was gone, the only thing left was cold fury. Rose could actually feel her magic spike as her emotions raged through her. "I'm in. Tell me everything you know about who we're up against." With a wave of her left hand, every single open book in the room slammed shut, the resulting noise rattling the glassware. A small gesture and a warped compact flew into her hand with a solid "thwack", it was quickly stowed away into her pocket.

Her belt with it's sword and dagger rattled as it unhooked itself from its peg and landed neatly into her hands, in a flash it was around her waist. I'm not as physically strong or as fast as any of you, I need to know their weaknesses."

Wind stayed in the background with Dev, knowing that he had to help the WereTiger from shifting on them. Thankfully, Desha showed up to join them and spoke up.

"Easily answered, Miss Rose. We're up against the former master of the vampire called Snow. That master's name is Kula. She's a nasty piece of work and I'll give you more details along the way. Make sure you have everything you'll need, though, while I form the portal to take us out of here. We're out of time," he said simply and turned to the now-closed main door to the suite and started forming the portal.

One moment, they only saw the door. The next, the door seemed to warp, looking like something in an old fun-house. Then it shifted again, the entire doorway getting dark. Then there was the image of a swamp on the other side, "There it is, exactly as Snow described it. Go through, I'll follow," he told them all.

Dev was the first through, needing no further urging. Wind followed, knowing he'd need to be there to keep Dev under control until it was actually safe to set him loose. Desha would be the last one through since he needed to keep the portal open for everyone...

The smell of the swamp hit Anube's nose as he nodded to Desha thanking him for his help and him coming along. They had a good group of people of people now to face this Kula. He was praying that blade was all right as he stepped through to the swamp and heard the squash noise of mud and water under his boots. From here on out it was up to all of them to get the others home safe and alive.

((exit to the ruins of the swamp))

Rose had sent Morty off with a servant, who promised to get him some untorn clothing and some meat as well as find a little room somewhere where Morty could stay out of trouble until tomorrow. Rose was quite grateful for this, she would have to find a way to thank them.

Somewhere on the way back to their rooms, the emotions that had previously been drowned out by her fury started to cycle through Rose's mind. By the time they were back, silent tears were threatening to spill over...She has nearly lost Cain, something that frightened her far more than any sorceress.