Sorrel

Alchemy is the science of making things explode. Sorrel wishes people would stop saying that, because it's very rarely what she's trying to do. It's not her fault that most of the necessary reagents are highly unstable. You also can't prove that the only reason she left her home clan was because she'd blown it to smithereens.

A skilled practitioner of her craft, Sorrel seeks to understand the secrets of transmutation. Of course, turning lead into gold is nowhere near interesting enough for an alchemist of her calibre, so she hopes to discover how to transmute matter into pure magical energy. (This might be a bad idea.)

The only reason Sorrel hasn't blown herself to pieces yet is because of her goggles. While normal goggles only protect the eyes, these goggles do something special. They're enchanted to the point where they could probably protect her from the blast of one of the Reaches' spines exploding. Unless she's wearing them properly. The goggles only work if they're on the forehead, not if they're over the eyes. (They protect with the power of looking cool.) Honestly, those goggles are likely a legendary artefact. So the question is, how did she get her claws on them?

Those dragons with a keen eye may notice that Sorrel appears to never have actually accomplished anything with her alchemy. Wise dragons know it's not a good idea to bring that up. Clueless dragons request she brew them some drinks, and get a cauldron of scalding water thrown at them as a reward. Sorrel has strong feels about her craft. Alchemy is not just what is practical! The knowledge gained from every mistake is the true value of her work.

And don't get snarky about her sheer number of mistakes. Sorrel is a proper scientist, thorough and rigorous. Her efforts are worthless if they're not reproducible. Yes, one of her attempts at creating a new potion released a vapour that left an entire floor of the fortress inhospitable for days. But does it do that every time? Which ingredients caused the reaction, and which were simply inert? There's no way to know without repeating the experiment multiple times. Those with labs near hers should understand that by now.

Amazingly, Sorrel does actually manage to create the occasional potion that is safe to consume. Not that many would be willing to drink her health potions, considering that they just so happen to melt through glass. "But dragons aren't made of glass!", Sorrel says. Nobody listens.

Of course, Sorrel's no stranger to drinking dubious liquids, as she's possibly the most avid consumer of Isle's energy drinks. No one else thinks giving a spiral more energy is a good idea, but Isle doesn't care. Neither does Sorrel. She can do so much alchemy after drinking just one! Mostly because she doesn't sleep for a week afterwards, giving her unbridled time for science. She's inevitably unconscious for the week after the drink wears off, but since she doesn't remember those weeks, as far as Sorrel's concerned they don't count.

Sorrel and Belanoir often have heated discussions on what the best make of cauldron is. Sorrel prefers modern ones that can be heated just by running an electric charge through them, while Belanoir prefers the classics.

As you might expect, her tome contains her notes and alchemy formulae. None of it is remotely legible. Interestingly, the ink she writes with glows the same blue as her claws. She refuses to read the notes of other alchemists, claiming that she already knows far more than they ever will. She most certainly doesn't, but trial and error was worked for her up to now, so why change it?

To hopefully not be melted alive by a overflowing concoction? Pfft, no.

---

The skydancer was a rare opportunity. Sorrel felt bad for her, of course, but as a Lightning dragon she knew she had to take the shot at a promotion when she saw it. If she succeeded, nobody would doubt her skills!

Eagerly she tore through cupboards of reagents, looking for anything that could have useful properties. Cinder creeper legs, ground maiden's blush, a dreadram tail, anything capable of causing a fever ended up spread out on a table.

Sorrel hadn't been there to watch Kokoro bring the mysterious skydancer back to the clan, but she had gone down to the basement to check on her. Collared and chained to the wall, her condition seemed incredibly barbaric compared to how the clan usually acted. Unless you noted the pile of shredded cloth and shattered glass in one corner of the room, evidence that the dragon was in no state to enjoy any amenities the clan wanted to provide. She was definitely possessed, Sorrel agreed with the rest of the clan on that. But some of them were whispering things about the Shade or powerful curses by infamous clans, and that was an overreaction.

No, this was only a mildly extraordinary case of possession by a spirit of some sort. Sorrel might not have been an exorcist, but she knew a few things about ghosts. Mostly because ectoplasm is quite a hard reagent to purchase, so she'd had to find ways of harvesting it herself. (She could have bought some off Jenna, but the coatl had said she wanted Sorrel's tome in exchange, and there was no way she'd give those secrets up.) After a number of failed attempts, Sorrel had discovered spirits are quite similar to regular magical essences, just angrier.

There was another reason Sorrel believed she'd have more success than her clanmates. Unlike the rest of them, she was willing to put herself in danger and approach the skydancer when she was awake. It took Sorrel a few tries, quickly flying past the skydancer and dodging her claws, but it paid off and she got a good look at her eyes. They were sunken and dark from the possession, but clearly deep blue. She was a water dragon!

Hence, all the ingredients related to fire magic. The spirit would have had to attach itself to the skydancer's magic to possess her. And as she'd discovered, that magic was water. Thus, adding enough heat would allow her to boil the spirit out of her body! Simple, elegant, and the skydancer would probably even survive!

Sorrel focused her own magic on the wires below her cauldron until it started to heat up, and then she began to brew. She had to be careful, a little too much of any reagent and the cauldron could get so hot it would melt.

It was as she was carefully tipping a jar of molten sludge into the cauldron that she heard someone moving behind her. She ignored them, her work was too important. But then behind her something went clank. In her surprise, Sorrel dropped the jar, spilling the entirety of its contents into her cauldron.

She had enough time to turn around and catch a glimpse of a tundra's fur as it and the rest of the dragon fled from her laboratory before the cauldron exploded. The blast flung her into a wall, causing a shelf to collapse and fall on top of her unconscious body.

That shelf, doused in a mixture of liquids that had previously been bottled on top of it, would be one of the few things in the lab not on fire when those of Sorrel's clanmates who'd heard the explosion came to rescue her.