#v. graceless eyes beneath golden boughs condemn your birth / once curses rain from burning branches you’ll know your worth ( elden ring. )

[fishermcn]

"Come on, Sam. Go talk to Nepheli!"

@yellowfingcr // company kept with a crooked crow and his broken voice.

No, absolutely not. It rattles out from under his breath as a viper's hiss, quiet but potent. "Ain't doin' it, Heysel, ya--!"

Too little, too late. Not for the first time (and for fucking sure not the last) Sam wishes he'd gotten a bit more of his da's bulk as Heysel gives him a surprisingly firm push and a wink. He doesn't flail, no, but the rude little gesture does catch him unawares and unprepared as he stumbles into the opposing stonework with a wheeze and a black oath still stuck fast in his throat.

Then he's... not. Strong but careful hands catch hold of his thin shoulders, a wall of an entirely different kind steadying him before the perfumer can kiss one of Stormveil castle's battlements. Sam blinks once, twice, first at the grip still holding him still (blade-calloused, skin the color of a ground coffee, loves a good brew he does, kissed with scars of a life lived in battle--) and secondly once his neck's craned back enough to look his unexpected savior full in her face (expression solemn but not unkind, soft brown eyes gilted gold by the scant sunlight, ain't seen a shade like hers, features sculpted as though from the stone of legends--).

For a man of already a scant few words at best, Sam finds himself grasping utterly at straws. Throat's suddenly dryer than a sand dune, sweat clinging to the back of his neck, yet there isn't a cough in sight to spare him from the sudden tension of the moment. Doubly so when Nepheli Loux, Warrior cocks her head in that half-concerned, half-curious way whilst still locking stares with him.

"... thanks." It's a thing more quiet than a snowflake's fall, accompanied by him finally cutting flinty eyes to the ground before the flush crawling up his throat has a chance to seize his face beneath his cloth mask. His own soot-stained hands settle over hers, hesitating for a moment before giving them a featherlight squeeze. Still here, still fine, no worries, they seem to say. "Should get a move on, yeah?"

Gonna kill Heysel, he is. Even if Sam's still feeling the warmth of Nepheli's hands through the ragged sleeves of his robes long after they've parted.

[fishermcn]

@dragonskxn // x

"Reckon ya want t'keep passin' by then. Whole patch o'these wriggled on in nearby," he rasps before falling into a coughing fit. His grip loosening, the sprout gains the upper hand as its roots begin to wind tightly around his biceps... before he bodily hefts the plant off the ground, only to slams them both back down with a loud thump. "Godsdamned bloody--! 'Randa sprouts don't lay roots lest there's plenty o'bodies t'draw from. Like wanderin' about, they do."

With scarcely a muttered "thanks", he takes the proffered sickle. Rather than immediately hacking at the still struggling roots though, he reaches for a vial on his belt and uncorks it, dabbing the blade with a few drops of something violet even as the scent of lilies drifts about them. With a deft slice across a root, the sprout struggles for another few moments before slowly stilling... though not before defiantly erupting in a cloud of virulent green pollen.

Covered in the pollen, he seems resigned rather than fear-struck at the toxic shroud blanketing him now. "Mhm, rude fuckin' thing." Wiping the sickle clean on a ragged cloak's sleeve, he offers it back alongside another small vial. "For th'poison." Toeing the petals of the bloom with his boot, the perfumer regards her warily, carefully even as another coughing fit strikes him fiercely. His next words are croaked out, coarse even after clearing his throat. "Good blade. Know ya plants?"

[fishermcn]

@yellowfingcr demanded: // WHAT SORT OF BREWS REQUIRE NECK MEAT.

Sam merely raises his eyebrows at Heysel, the smirk pulling at his thin lips particularly crooked.

[fishermcn]

"Don't listen to the witch. Sellin' snake oil she is. Need more turtle neck in ya lives, ya do. Gonna repopulate'n shit eventually ain't ya? Not like half o'this lot could be Elden Lord no way, might as well get started now."

[fishermcn]

"Case in point..."

He's making a point himself to think of anything but poison while drinking his flask at the sight of the Canary.

[fishermcn]

Heysel gives him what theoretically is a whittled figurine of a sitting wolf. As usual, it's at best an experimentally abstract wolf.

"Practice should make perfect but I could swear I'm actually getting worse."

@yellowfingcr // trinkets and baubles fit for the crow's nest // accepting.

He tries. Oh, by Radagon's balls he tries. For whatever one might call this sharp-toothed thing between perfumer and assassin, whether a friendship fraught with painful awareness of what they are or a camaraderie forged between those born into this world intent on clawing something out for themselves, Sam does actually like Heysel. Smoking pipes together whilst listening to the rain, collaborating on particularly deadly poisons and aromatics, sending some poor fool howling into an afterlife decidedly less gilded than the Erdtree's embrace... they're good mates at this point.

So when presented with a whittled figure depicting something, that of an animal perhaps? Samuel Whist takes the deepest, quietest breath his fickle lungs will allow before saying anything. "Heysel, ya shouldn't have..." It's no good. Already his control is shaking, and she can so easily read him even with that mask of his covering everything up. Taking the thing in-hand is easy enough, but trying to discern what the figurine could be is impossible. Turning it over in his stained hands, holding it closer to his face, none of it makes any difference. "This is... really, I ain't ever..."

No, nope. There's absolutely no helping it. Whatever attempts his da had made to instill in him some manner of decorum or restraint was already a doomed effort years ago, and the ghost of those lessons long forgotten is given up yet again with a wheezed chuckle. It doesn't turn into a full fit, truly it doesn't, but it does take a good minute or so between his coughing and laughter to catch his breath enough to speak proper again. "Godsdamn, Heysel. I forget, sometimes, I do." Another cough, and Sam shakes his head before regarding her with no small amount of amusement... and genuine fondness. "Ya ain't good at everythin'. It's good. Makes me feel better."

Turning the figurine over again between his hands, Sam regards it likewise fondly before tucking it carefully away into the place his runes are kept. "Keep it, I will. To remind me once ya figure out how t'whittle them proper... 'sides, I always did like badgers."

[fishermcn]

tinker + shinguards. -- rotten-pest (Cotesia asks, bearing a cheery little smile for all the menace she portrays otherwise)

@rotten-pest // no gold or silver will suffice for this gift; only the deaths you deliver cruel and swift // accepting.

When you dedicate yourself to being a "depraved" perfumer, you acknowledge that the pursuit of alchemical secrets and unnatural boons will cost you dearly. Whether that price is something as heartfelt as losing all you once held close to chest in the pursuit of power or simply a weight upon your soul tallied with the bodies you're forced to pile onto the pyre one after the other, there is always something to be taken for all that can be gained. A scale rebalanced, a pushing back of the world in due reply to you throwing your weight around.

Thankfully in Soot's case, the only toll exacted upon him has been the general sanity of his clientele, and compared to the previous round of customers Corellia (Contessa, Cotellie, somethin' like that--) here seemed to have her wits about her. Barring her taste in color arrangement that is, considering the horrible menagerie of colors sprouting from her breastplate. Radagon's balls, but blinking didn't do him a damn bit of good neither. Reminds him a bit of old Jerren, honestly...

Right, priorities. Focus. Tearing his gaze away from her breastplate and the hideous gambeson beneath it, Soot blinks and glances between the offering of her (admittedly worn, godsdamn--) shin guards and the smile lightening her claw-kissed face. Mhm, damn pests had gotten a nasty swing in by the look of her. Maybe she'd be interested in a new helmet too? "Ain't an armorer by trade, but..." He takes them in soot-stained hands with a care that belies his uncharitable thoughts, a thumb smoothing over the pitted steel whilst cradled in his spindly arms. It isn't hard to tell that these are older than she's had them for how worn-in they are, nor that they've faced the worst the road has to offer long before they were even in decent shape. "Got some dents here," and a dirty nail taps at a particularly deep one with a soft ting-ting. "Cloth's threadbare, coulda been secured too loosely...?"

On the very tip of his tongue, Soot nearly offers her a pair he's had tucked away for some time now. Pair of Redmane issue steel plate, tightly forged and never worn, polished to a sheen... yet it stays locked tight behind his crooked teeth. Another glance spared Cornelia's way, another once over of her from grinning face to garish maille to well-traveled boots, and something in his gut tightens at the thought of just attempting to talk her into tossing out these things.

"Gimme a day, two at most." Setting the guards onto a table already crowded with bits and baubles of an origin unknown and unrecalled, Soot pauses and pats himself down before retrieving an aromatic bottle. He tosses it to Coryn without so much as a "look alive" and gestures towards the ramshackle shack's door, already turning over the leggings between his hands. "Try that. Bloodboil with somethin' extra. Make ya hit like a batterin' ram, it should."

What's a day in the Weeping Peninsula come out to, when the sun never shows its face for all the bloody storm clouds? If Soot keeps track of anything it's how often Cordellia comes and goes, comes and goes, maybe not unwisely checking in on his progress and seeing for herself that he isn't in the business of filching banged up armor. As such she sees the restoration more closely than many of his other clients. Cloth is unceremoniously shorn from inside each legging only to be carefully, painstakingly refitted with a squinted eye and shockingly steady threading needle. Dents left from deflected blows are knocked back into proper shape with precise strikes of the hammer. Dirt accumulated from gods knew how many years of marching across the Lands Between is washed and scraped away with only a few mumbled oaths here and there for the elbow grease and effort put towards it.

It's the tail end of that second day when Soot finally presents the guards back to... fuck, what was it again? Corvina? Close enough. Witness though she'd been to most of the refurbishment, Soot figures he's at least managed to slip a few things past her attention. Where once the steel had reflected their time on the endless journey, now they gleamed with the attention a paid man with scrounged up polish can afford. Those pitted places across their now pristine surface have been properly straightened out, seamless and proven so by the level finger that traces down the surface of both leggings. Perhaps most notably though is the fabric used to soften their interior, replaced from that tattered and ruined material of before with a deep crimson cloth and tight stitching.

"Came out all right, it did. Been a bit since m'last stitches." Soot pauses, gnawing his bottom lips, before seeming to recall something. "Mhm, by the by, added somethin'." Nonchalantly, he plucks free a short but sharp blade from a small divot within the cloth of the shin guard. It's handle is wrapped in the very green binding that had once held together her left legging, it too now clean from the dust of the road. "Gotta sheath in both guards. Can't feel'm when ya walk. Nice in a pinch." With a wheeze, Soot tucks the dirk away and smothers the rest of his coughs into a raggedy sleeve. "Remember me when they do ya a good turn."

[fishermcn]

A rat. I do not even loathe you. Merely find irritating, and you do irritate me on purpose, and one day I just might grab and toss you like a javelin.

thoughts seeping through as sea water in a rotted rowboat // accepting.

"Reckon that Greater Will ya hold dear might be easier t'see and hear if ya head weren't crammed so far up yer own arse."

[fishermcn]

@hexenjagd commented: "I suppose your lacking audience of shambling nobles have been pleasant enough-- they're shooting dust, Sam dear."

"Sayin' that a little too confidently, 'elena. Know somethin' we don't?" Sam waves her off, soot-stained hands held up defensively. "They wanna run laps or hip thrust all day, let'm. 'Sides, gotta few Tarnished buyers anyway."

[fishermcn]

The ashes of Redmane Knight Ogha, handed to you.

trinkets and baubles fit for the crow's nest // accepting.

Isn't too often that someone comes around with an offer to trade spirit ashes, much less to give them away without asking for a single rune for their troubles. With so many of the dead in the Lands Between either interred within the roots of the Erdtree or shambling about as unliving scourges, they were rare enough to find and even rarer to use given how few spiritcaller bells were out there.

Sam's already wary and uneasy at this entire exchange, and it's only made worse when the box of ashes is held carefully between his soot-stained hands. While any writing on the box is meaningless to him, the clear embellishments etched into it speak plainly of how honored the deceased must have been. Then the sigil of the Redmane etched upon it catches his gaze, and Sam damn near drops the thing onto the ground with a startled coughing fit.

"Who...?" Whatever wariness that might've lingered on his part has evaporated, replaced with surprise and then determination as he frees the weathered bell from its place tucked away within his cloak. Flinty eyes fixated on the box, Sam hesitates for a moment before giving the spiritcaller bell a firm shake, and while the spirit fails to materialize the impression of its presence is more than telling.

A lion's fierce banner flapping beneath a crimson sun, the tautness of a mighty bow in the eye's twinkling before release, the power to halt the sky fashioned 'pon arrow's head, the Valkyrie's kindred clashing with the Red Lion's sworn in doomed war-- and Sam can breathe again with a harsh wheeze, nearly doubled over.

"Where the fuck," he rasps, stained hands trembling and bone-white from how tightly he's gripping the remains of the most honored one. "did ya find this?" As if remembering himself and the need to actually breathe, Sam stuffs the spirit ashes into the very same satchel he keeps his valuables within before whirling on the stranger. "... don't answer that. Take this," and a hero's rune is thrust into their chest accompanied by a low hiss, "an' walk on... might find ya later."

[fishermcn]

@izar-tarazed cheerily noted: [Izar just observing this from a distance with a grin while munching rowa raisins like popcorn]

"Don't. Not a peep, ain't seen nothin' at all." Sam very pointedly does not look Izar full in her face and carefully ignores the sudden increase in tempo from that damned unsteady heart of his. "Back to star gazin' or whatever with ya."

[fishermcn]

@izar-tarazed pondered: ... Izar has never even entertained the thought, but now that the possibility has been pointed out... I feel like she's extremely conflicted. xD

"Roast the choice bits 'fore putting'm in the pot. Same f'some mushrooms, add a bit o'chopped herba leaf and some salt..." Sam for once looks as if he's lost in a dream, gaze turned skyward as a longing sigh rattles out of his chest. "Ain't nothin' taste better."

[fishermcn]

While prone to delving into the most forbidden places and abusing the most blasphemous of brews by their very nature, there remains one substance even the most depraved perfumers dare not toy with: the scarlet rot.

While the brewing of virulent poisons and blood-boiling toxins is the mainstay of any depraved perfumer's gruesome arsenal and trade, by its very nature scarlet rot prevents experimentation and thus exploitation through mortal meddling. As the influence of an Outer God expressed, scarlet rot isn't an element to be bound or manipulated but an eradicator of incomparable strength... for anything that comes into contact with scarlet rot does not act upon it but is acted upon instead. As a result any brew that contains even the smallest amount of scarlet rot is rendered neutral, for the rot will consume everything it can to propagate itself.

As such, depraved perfumers prefer to utilize things adjacent to the scarlet rot in their alchemical pursuits rather than struggle in vain against the substance directly. Bark from the "trees" that grow in Caelid after the Bloom of Aeonia are commonly used to enhance poisons, oftentimes creating a terrible burning sensation in pale imitation to the suffering undergone by a true scarlet rot infection.

[fishermcn]

Attempts at utilizing dragon heart and even dragonsblood in aromatics have, historically, ended in disaster. Typically cobbled together in attempts to channel the dormant power of gravel stones into scaly armor or similar draconic traits, these ill-fated brews often incinerate the user from within or horribly mutilate them as the essence within their flesh twists the body into more preferable shapes.

Those unfortunate few to survive enter a state of lesser wyrmhood and quickly lose their humanity.

[fishermcn]

// if you think sam didn't spend nearly a day and a half scaling castle mourne at the risk of life and limb just to raise the redmane flag over his new abode... you'd be mistaken :y

[fishermcn]

Considering the shift in both intent and design of aromatics as the intensity of the Shattering grew, a clear line can be drawn from the remnants of the older perfumer order to what has become of the present-day practioners of the art. Those who retain their desire to preserve and protect have kept to the old ways, preferring to bolster themselves and allies alike with perfumes that saturate the air... whereas those fallen to depravity prefer to imbibe their toxic creations.

Indeed, the use of the mouth to break down the miranda powders used in their violent perfumes is the mark of a depraved perfumer... as is ingestion, even partially of their brews. As the miranda powder diffuses and becomes finer, the potency of the aromatic markedly increases; the mere shower of sparks that could burn an enemy might become a blaze, a gust of poisoned breath a virulent cloud. All the while the depraved perfumer becomes ever more intoxicated by their alchemical slurries, ever more enticed to develop truly cruel and blasphemous brews to further their descent.

Such perfumers are an easy lot to pick from a crowd, their breath stinking of vile chemicals and their mouths perpetually stained and cracked from the corrosive pollen of the miranda flower. Minds and thoughts addled by their prediliction, they are as quick to rage as they are to weep, and often times pursue isolated existences for the paranoia and fits of loathing that seize them should they keep the company of their fellows for too long.

Needless to say, Sam has no intent of treading that particular pitfall of his profession. While the risk remains given his preference for flame-based aromatics in battles, he refrains from indulging in any concoctions save for one... one that notably requires no miranda powder at all.