There was no place for an Exclusion Zone scavenger’s instincts alongside her own, she wasn’t a subsistence survivalist.

The pressure, the heat, the tension, it all grew to what felt like what would be a breaking point, like a colossal full-body cramp, until… It vanished, leaving behind a sentiment she knew to not be her own.

It was the idea of defying death through becoming a vital part of something far greater than oneself, and the acceptance of it.

Her perception of time lurched back to normal, and with it, a rising gag reflex overtook all other sensations. Makhus had begun to concernedly say something before she doubled over, clutching her stomach as her body violently ejected a pitch-black liquid the consistency of molten asphalt all over the marble floor. It stunk of stagnant water and rot, and tasted like chewing on half-rotted wood marinated in the juices of rancid bear meat.

A miasma soon rose from the puddle, spreading a layer of black mist just above the floor. Zelsys spat and heaved, cautiously breathing and trying to manipulate her insides into expelling all of the foul substance whether it be through spitting or retching. Makhus, thinking on his feet, had vanished from sight only to reappear seconds later with a flask full of transparent bluish liquid.

“Here, just drink it,” he said, and she did. A flood of familiar herbal flavors accented by aggressive citrusy sourness flushed away the vile tar that coated her mouth and esophagus. She washed out her mouth with the solution, going out of her way to spit it into the lab’s sink so as to not make even more of a mess, before she downed half of the flask’s contents in an attempt at washing clean the inside of her throat.

A sudden jolt of physical and mental energy went through her system, and reading the flask’s handwritten label clued her into the reason.

DTD - VDS - ETH - AQA

12% - 28% - 20% - 40%

She inferred that the last three probably stood for Viriditas, Ethanol, and pure water, while the first more likely than not stood for Daytime Dust. While she wasn't sure how it got to this colour from green and yellow, the flavors checked out, and surprisingly effectively overpowered the olfactory properties of what must’ve been the portions of the Necrobeast solution that she - and therefore, her body - had rejected.

It… Still didn’t stop her from puking again, this time as a somehow even viler chunky soup of blue elixir with black clumps carried within it. To her relief, the second round seemed to be the last of it.

Turning around met her with Makhus squatting next to the puddle, tossing a handful of paper talismans onto it one by one and muttering to himself. A few changed color, one shriveled up, another turned to dust, yet another went up in flames altogether, the smoke of which formed an image reminiscent of one of the images that had flashed in her mind’s eye. He looked up at her, remarking, “I’d expected you to maybe sweat out some gunk or cough up a solid lump of impurities, but it looks like your body completely rejected even aspects that I couldn’t afford to purge from the solution. Even small things like some residual mnemonic azoth…”

“Couldn’t afford to purge?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath, downing some more of that blue liquid, but making sure to leave at least some in the bottle. Makhus would probably want some of it to compare against later batches, there was no way this stuff wouldn’t sell.

“Yeah, there were some residual memories and stuff right?” he asked. She nodded, and he continued, “So those were basically like the spiritual ligaments holding the actual traits together without a living soul to latch onto. The beast’s self-reconstruction trait should now latch onto your own will to survive and its essentia breath trait should - hopefully - latch onto whatever mental and spiritual foundation you have for weaponizing essentia plus… Whatever that tongue mutation is stuck to.”

A humorous countenance came over him and he added, “D’you happen to have an oral fixation?”

Zel grinned back and stuck out her tongue as far as it would go. It was… Far longer than she had thought, and Makhus’s befuddled reaction only reaffirmed it.

“Fuck me, that damn thing’s half a cubit long,” he alchemist laughed before the beast-slayer pulled her tongue back in. “Don’t worry ‘bout the mess, I expected it. It’s less than I’d prepared for, really.” He looked back to the black puddle, stood up, and grabbed a thick bundle of seals off a nearby table, then began spreading them out on the ground around the filth. A short while later, with a solid circle formed around the puddle, he just haphazardly tossed seals by the handful over the puddle’s surface until it was covered in them, then put the remaining one-fifth of the bundle back on the table.

Several deep breaths of Fog, a few strange incantations, and a number of eye-crossing gestures later, he proclaimed: “Purgation Arts: Impurity Coagulation Seal!”

The symbols upon the seals shone purple, the outer circle shifting inward to contour the puddle until it all suddenly lurched together into a sphere whose surface was entirely made up of seals. Makhus slumped backwards, breathing heavily, then stumbled to his feet. It was like that one feat of aethermancy had sapped every single ounce of energy left in the man.

“I… Need to sleep,” he sighed, sleepily walking to the door of the lab. He turned before he left, adding, “Let me know when the traits show up in your list, we’ll have to reopen the stump to put your arm back on. Just… Just don’t wake me up for it, please.”

She nodded at him again, and he vanished beyond the door. A few steps up the stairs were heard, then nothing. The same number of steps sounded and Makhus poked his head through the door.

“And feel free to drink the whole thing,” he said, pointing to the bottle in Zel’s hand. “It’s a basic mixture and the sample’s tainted anyway.”

“Go to sleep already,” she repeated.