With Mr. Periwinkle destroyed, it was pretty hard carrying things around. Even more so with broken ribs. Kimen clutched a small stack of children's books in one arm as well as a small grocery bag containing a little bit of easy to prepare food to get her by for a while. The healer had told her to stay in bed and rest as much as possible, take her pain killers, try not to move about much-- A difficult thing to ask of a kid with so much energy. Kimen carefully slipped through the broken gate of the abandoned house and made her way down the overgrown weed covered path. It was the only place in Truce that she could think of to stay. She climbed up a couple of creaky steps and made her way across the porch, preparing to carefully avoid the frail boards that would break under her weight if she stepped--- Kimen stopped in front of the boards in question, noting that one of them seemed to be a bit more concave than it had this morning before she left. Not quite broken in, but likely to break at any moment. Strange.

Had something walked across it? Kimen carefully made her way over the bad section with the help of the rickety railing. If it wasn't for her ribs she would have simply jumped, but now crossing it was a little more difficult to manage. Once she was clear, she turned the knob to the door, and slipped inside.

The interior of the house was relatively undisturbed, though there was a mysterious bubbling noise coming from inside the bare dining room. Inside, a small brick oven with several glass beakers and oversized flasks on top of it had been set up. How the garishly dressed figure reading a book beside it had managed to drag all that equipment into the room was a mystery. The walking eyesore hummed as he turned the page in the little book, then bent over to do something with the equipment on top of the oven.

As Kimen stepped inside, the sound of something bubbling caught his ears. He stood in the foyer for a moment, listening. The child was not irresponsible enough to leave something on the stove all day, and even then, the sound was coming from a room in which this sound should not be coming from. Kimen bit his lip, trying to decide if he should investigate, or leave. It was clear that someone was here. The child made his decision, setting the books he was carrying and the groceries beside the door and carefully tiptoed towards the dining room’s doorway, seeking to take a peek at who was there. The attempt at stealth failed however, as a board underfoot gave a loud creek as Kimen put his weight on it, loudly announcing the child's presence.

Coloumb looked up from his book and glanced around as the floor creaked. "Uhh.. Someone there?" He closed the book and put it away while he stared at the door. "I have to warn you I'm armed and mildly dangerous!" The alchemist nervously pulled out a large roll cake and strapped it to his left arm.

Kimen stood frozen where she stood, breath caught. Was it too late to flee? Should she stay still and hope that whoever was in the dining room attributed the noise to the age of the house? Or should she announce herself? Whoever was in there would probably come and check if she stayed silent. And if she ran, he might follow. And with her injury she wasn't sure she wanted to imagine what running would feel like so. "Hello." Kimen started, eyes looking to the cracked vaze that sat upon a dust covered table next to the door. "Thank you for the warning. I am unarmed and not dangerous at all."

"Oh. Well, uh... Carry on, then. I'm just doing some experiments in here, don't mind me." Coloumb removed the roll cake and pulled out the book to begin going back to his experiment. "You live here or something?"

Kimen allowed himself to relax a little and made his way to the door of the dining room, peering inside nervously to find that there was an older boy sitting in there in some rather bright attire. "Kinda? I sort of just come here when I need a place to stay." Kimen's eyes next fell upon the equipment the kid had set up in the room, "What kind of experiments are you doing?"

"Ah, I see." Coloumb turned a page in his book. "I'm making some fireball crystals. I ran out when I got ambushed by a pack of imps outside of town. Nasty little things, but much easier than the imps I know of." He looked over at Kimen. "Name's Coloumb, what's yours?"

"I'm Kimen." The child answered, tilting her head to the side. "What are fire crystals?" She could make a guess, but considering how magic and techniques and technology varied so much from world to world it seemed like a good idea to ask.

"Fireball crystals, Fire crystals are an ingredient for them." Coloumb fished around in a pouch on his waist and pulled out a little red gem with a fire emblem inside it. "This is a Fire crystal." He tossed it to Kimen before he turned back to the oven thingy. "And this is a fume oven, used to make crystals." He consulted the book one more time before he reached into the slot and pulls out a black crystal. "And this is a fireball crystal."

Kimen caught the crystal that was thrown to him and looked down at it in his hand. He could sense the magical properties of it as well as its potential. It was kind of a pretty red, too. "So did you make the fire crystal yourself, Mr. Coloumb?" Kimen asked, turning his attention back to the strange boy.

"Oh, no. Not that one. I know how to make them, but I still have plenty of the basic crystals." Coloumb put the book away and pulled out some more crystals, one blue, one brown and one translucent. "These are the other basic ones. I can use them for most anything."

Water, earth, and air? If the crystal in Kimen's hand was a fire crystal then it would make sense that the other three contained the other elements. "So do you use these to fight with? You mentioned running out earlier today."

"Uh huh, I use this thing here..." Coloumb pulled out the roll cake. "And fire the crystals out of it. I can combine them in the loading process to get different effects. Wind and water make ice, for example." He strapped the cake to his arm.

"So what goes into making a fireball crystal?" Kimen feeling a little braver left the safety of the dining room doorway and proceeded to move in closer to the other boy to get a closer look at what he was working on. It seemed rather neat and maybe something Kimen could learn too.

"Lesse... It really just takes one fire crystal, then I have to cast fireball and have this thing forcibly stuff the spell into the crystal. Here, watch." Coloumb pulled the book out again, putting another fire crystal into the slot in the oven. He began concentrating, and a small fireball appeared in an orbit around him, gradually growing larger.

Kimen sat quietly on her knees, watching as the boy worked, utterly fascinated by the process. Crystals certainly had plenty potential for storing magic, and she was pretty sure that some people used them for magic in her world, but she never really bothered to learn the details on the subject as she had other interests she was perusing when the class was covering the topic. Most certainly they were not learning how to stuff spells in them though. Kimen did not remember anything like this.

Once the fireball had grown to the size of a softball, Coloumb directed it into the slot of the oven. "And now we wait." He continued to consult the book during the process.

It seemed like a pretty handy thing the more kimen thought about it. Cast spells now, then use them for later without expending yourself. No doubt something like this would be helpful in a pinch but... Kimen's eyes moved to the roll cake then to the crystal in his hands wondering, "So... do all of them have to be fired from that thing in order for their effects to be utilized?"

Coloumb nodded. "Yup. It's good for those without any magic." He consulted the book again and pulled out the finished crystal. "I just load it in here..." Coloumb stuck the fireball crystal into the cylinder and watched as it begins to charge up to fire. "It's all based on pressure, so I suppose one could find other ways to activate the crystals. A strong impact, maybe? I can't imagine what it would do with the undirected energy release, though."

"So then it’s only used for use of weaponry, Fighting and stuff?" Kimen seemed a little disappointed. It didn't sound like she would be using this for every day practical use. Although combat was a pretty common thing in the cleft, she generally avoided it whenever she could.

"Well, there are things that don't necessarily have a combat use. Here, follow me outside and I'll show you." Coloumb removed the fireball crystal as he got up and walked out the back door. "See that gap in the fence over there? I'ma fix it." He loadded several of the brown crystals into the cylinder on his way over to the gap.

Kimen followed the older kid out to the door of the back yard, finding that he had to stand on his tip toes in order to look over Coloumbs shoulder and out into the part of the yard where he indicated. There, a section of the fence hand fallen down, its planks likely laying on the ground somewhere, lost in the tall uncut grass and weeds.

"Barries spikes!" Coloumb fired his cylinder at the gap, causing no effect, at first. After a moment, a wall of thick wooden spikes erupted from the ground to fill in the gap. "And I have another thing..." Coloumb loadded some water crystals into his cylinder before firing a thick stream of mist up into the air where it collected into a raincloud.

Okay, Kimen didn't think that was too bad. The spikes were a bit on the crude side compared to the carefully cut planks of the rest of the fence, but they seemed to work pretty well if you were in a pinch and needed to fix something quickly. And making it rain would certainly make watering a yard easier... not that this one really needed to be watered at the moment. "Thats really neat, Mr. Coloumb! I guess it -is- pretty useful for things other than fighting." Kimen exclaimed, smiling.

"Well, only those two things are noncombatant. Everything else has varying degrees of lethality." Coloumb shrugged. "Well, it's not called 'battle alchemy' for no reason, heh. I mean, can you do anything similar?"

"Similar to battle alchemy? No, not really. Back in my world I started off studying to become a mage and then...." Kimen paused for a brief second, eyes flicking briefly to the side as she chose to leave out a bit of time between that point and her current one, "... I fell into the cleft, and then I became an apprentice to a knight! Though... I guess I am not Mr. Kent's apprentice anymore." Kimen's shoulders sagged and her smile faded as she remembered the man. "I wasn't very good at it though."

Coloumb shrugged. "If it's any consolation, I'm not very good at fighting either. I just tend to shoot things with alchemy or hit them with my lute." He motioned to the instrument slung across his back. "I mean, I do have a big broadsword, and that's fairly effective..." He trailed off, scratching his chin.

Kimen brought back his smile, not wanting to upset his company. "You can play an instrument, Mr. Coloumb? Would you play something for me? I brought some food here with me and I will share it with you in exchange!" Kimen offered taking a hold of the boys shirt and lightly tugging on it to suggest they go back inside. "I didn't have much but I am sure I can feed both of us!"

"Food, huh? I could go for something to eat." Coloumb followed Kimen inside, thinking about which scroll to play for the younger kid.