Kimen excitedly slipped through the door eager to finally tell Kent what he had been up to all these months. When the former knight told Kimen about the Hellfire in his blood, Kimen had told him that he would try to find a way to save him and now it seemed as though that way might have been found... maybe. The child really couldn't say that for certain yet and he didn't want to get Mr. Kent's hopes up too much but it was something. And as long as there were possibilities there was hope. "So... I guess you want to know what I have been up to, right?" Kimen cleared a spot on one of the tables to place his books and set them down.

Kent closed the door behind him and hung up his cloak on a bearby rack. "I suppose you're about to tell me anyway," Kent said, not quite sure what Kimen was hinting at. It was at the point that he just assumed it was some magical research, and so Kent stayed out of it as a half-hearted attempt to be supportive. He looked down at the books Kimen presented. "So what have you been up to?"

"At one point I was desperate enough to consider it, but I honestly don't know of any." Kimen put down his jacket and picked up a pen and a pad of paper, bringing it over to the table. He imagined you might need some sort of visual aid with what he was about to explain just to make sure it didn't go over his head. He didn't think the man knew the first thing about magic and in order to explain how he came up with his theory, he had to go into the topic. "Now, magic can come in various types a

various types and forms. But there are four that are considered the most basic that seem to be common regardless of world. Water..." at the top of the page Kimen drew what looked like a little tear drop. "Air..." To the right he made a bunch of swirls, "Fire..." at the bottom of the page he drew a small pointy blaze. "...And lastly, earth." To the left, Kimen drew a little plant then connected the four little pictures to make a circle. "Got it?"

The child kicked off her shoes, sending them flying into one of the corners. "Well, remember when you told me about your blood? Ever since then I have been researching it. I grabbed any book I could find on fire magic looking for any mention of hellfire. You wouldn't believe how little it was mentioned--At least as far as the cleft is concerned! But I did find a couple mentions after months of looking. Unfortunately they didn't help all that much." Kimen explained as she pulled off her jacket. She frowned up at kent, folding the article of clothing of her arm, "At least not in the way I wanted it to."

Kent raised an eyebrow. "You're not planning on going to talk to demonologists about this, are you?" He was somewhat worried about the child researching into something this corrupting. It would get much more of a reaction out of Kent than magic otherwise would, and that's saying something.

"At one point I was desperate enough to consider it, but I honestly don't know of any." Kimen put down his jacket and picked up a pen and a pad of paper, bringing it over to the table. He imagined Kent might need some sort of visual aid with what he was about to explain just to make sure it didn't go over his head. He didn't think the man knew the first thing about magic and in order to explain how he came up with his theory, he had to go into the topic. "Now, magic can come in various types and forms. But there are four that are considered the most basic that seem to be common regardless of world. Water..." at the top of the page Kimen drew what looked like a little tear drop. "Air..." To the right he made a bunch of swirls, "Fire..." at the bottom of the page he drew a small pointy blaze. "...And lastly, earth." To the left, Kimen drew a little plant then connected the four little pictures to make a circle. "Got it?"

Kent nodded. "Yeah, it's a wheel." He tilted his head a bit. "And so... do they like, repel each other or...?" Kent never understood magic when explained. Perhaps his ignorance lead to his fear, or perhaps his lack of knowledge was why he lived so long. He didn't know much beyond 'avoid it.'

"Yes!" Kimen was quite pleased with Kent's answer and she clapped. "You got it! Fire and water generally do not mix well. Neither does earth and air! Neighbors of the on the wheel don't normally have the same degree of conflict, but they can still cancel each other out under the right conditions. Kind of like how you can use dirt to smother a fire, or wind to blow out a candle. Then again fire can also feed on plant life and be soread by wind. This is important!" Kimen went back to drawing on her sketch pad. "Usually these elements are considered a neutral base to work with. But in the case of Hellfire, we have additional properties of it being evil and damaging to the soul." When kimen moved their hand the fire drawing now seemed to have grown a pair of pointed horns and was glaring with an angry frown. "If we look at the oposite side of the wheel we can see water will cancel out the fire. But with the additional properties it is not enough." Kimen added a halo and a smiley face to the water droplet, then looked up at Kent, "Naturally you would consider Holy water to counter it but... well... there is a problem with that."

"Because they counter each other extremely violently," Kent filled in. He had experimented with it a bit, and Hellfire and Holy water were parts of understanding demons and how to fight them, so he understood this part. "And in my case, it'd kill me."

"Which is why we cannot use holy water to cure you." Kimen nodded staring down at the paper. "But that doesn't mean there isn't a cure. Or at least what I think might be a cure. I can't really be certain but I might have found a potential solution in either keeping the hellfire in check, or curing it completely."

Kent put his hands on the table and leaned in. "Okay, you officially have my attention. What's your idea?"

"In school, I studied magic so I could aid adventurers like my brothers in battle when they went into magic infested places. In my world, its important to understand that each person is aligned with at least one of these elements. A person is the most powerful with one but suffer from not being able to weild the others. And if someone has all four aligned with them their power is generally weaker but they have more tools to work with. Anyone can learn all of them, but if you step outside of your aligned element or elements its more difficult to learn and they can be incredibly weak. For example, I myself can weild elements like earth and air easily, but I struggle with fire and water so you probably won't ever see me use either with any great effectivness. Anyway that is the jist of it. We can go into more detail on if someone is aligned with neighboring or opposite elements but at the moment we don't need to." Kimen cleared his throat and continued. "One of my instructors gave us a scenario: A fire aligned mage accompanies an endenturer into a cave and they anger a fire elemental, it begins to attack. What does the mage do? Naturally this is a pretty bad scenario. You can only use magic against an elemental so the adventurer who can only use weapons and brute force is entirely helpless here. Its entirely up to the mage to fight. Unfortunately though they are strong in fire magic which would only feed a fire elemental. Your best bet in this situation is...well... run if you can. But if you couldn't, this is why the school strived to teach all four to its students. Say the mage could not master water, but they could use wind or earth instead! They may not be as effective, but they would still do damage against a fire elemental, and that is what brings me to my solution!" Kimen circled the drawings of the plant and the swirls of wind she had drawn. "To fight your hellfire maybe we could turn to these two. a good, holy, or pure plant or air wouldn't react as strongly as holy water but it would still react."

Kent was starting to lose some understanding of the conversation. So, he'd need one opposing element but not two, because three is bad and seventeen is a prime number. He turned his attention to the collection of books that Kimen had brought along. "So, does this have anything to do with your growing interest in herbalism or...?"

"Oh! Yes, actually." Kimen ran over to the stack of books, selecting one of them and opening it to the index. "The cleft is a pretty magical place all things considered so I applied that knowlege I gained from class to see if I could find a plant of some sort with a natural good alignment that would counter the hellfire, but not as strongly as holy water. I figured plant would be better since it seemed more likely to exist than something with such an alignment in air, and it would be easier to convert into a medicine if we needed to." Kimen, upon finding what she was looking for within the books placed it open on the table for Kent to see. "Its called a purity leaf." She grinned, looking quite proud of herself for her findings.

Kent skimmed over the page that Kimen presented. "No." He said it very quickly and very sternly. It was obvious in his eyes, however, that this had nothing to do with his distrust of magic or hatred of relying on it. The page hinted at where it was, and you didn't need to spend too much time as a demon hunter in Guardia to know what it meant. "I don't want you to go there. It'd be too dangerous and I don't know if you'd even come back. My life isn't worth looking for this thing for."

Kimen frowned, at first thinking Kent's objection was to the leaf itself due to its magical properties, but when the former knight explained the reasoning behind his answer the child looked hopeful again. "I am sure there are ways to get it without going there." Kimen said quickly. "I mean, it looks as though the leaf can be replicated through alchemy. If I could find the ingrediants and an alchemist then I wouldn't have to go to that place to find it."

Kent sat down and rubbed his head with his gloved hand. "Alright," Kent said. "I don't know where to find an alchemist who would have access to that, but you have my permission to find one." He looked up at his apprentice. "Just, please, don't do go too far when you try to get your hands on it. And you know exactly what kind of 'too far' I mean."

Kimen smiled brightly, "I'll do my best. There has to be someone around who studies alchemy. I mean..." Kimen grabbed the alchemy book she had and turned to the back where a little folder attached inside the back cover held an index card. She pulled it out, revealing a series of signatures and dates. Many of the signatures were similar indicating that the book had been checked out repeatedly by the same person who had small, but very tidy handwriting; Cecilia Greychild. "I am willing to bet she might know plenty about the topic. Her name is on the same card in the more advanced books too!"

"I've never heard of her." Kent said. "Where exactly do you think that you're going to find this woman?"

"I don't know." Kimen admitted, placing a finger on his lip and looking deep in thought "But at least it is some kind of lead. And that is better than having none. And if I can't find her I could always look for an adventerer who might be getting rid of one so there is still hope even if that fails, right?"

Kent chuckled. It'd been a long time since he wasn't on the recieving end of 'find an adventurer.' "Well, with how I've seen it done, that's actually a surprisingly good plan." Kent often forgot how clever Kimen could be. He stood up and stretched, and then looked back down at the book. "Do you mind if I borrow this, actually?" Kent asked against all odds.

"Sure! Just make sure that it is returned to the library by the end of the week. Otherwise I am going to have to pay a late fee." Kimen nodded, beaming a bright smile. "In the mean time detective Kimen is on the case! I'll try to find this woman. If she isn't an alchemist maybe she knows one!" Before Kent could bring his arms down from stretching the child flung her arms around him squeezing him tightly. "So don't worry Mr. Kent!"

Kent rested his arm around Kimen and used his free arm to pick up the herbology book. He was about to say he wasn't worried, but he knew he'd be lying. Of course, he knew that Kimen was actually talking about him. He sighed. "Thanks Kimen," he said instead. "I appreciate your help."