Prologue: The Barony of Harkenwold

"What feet!?" - Carlos instead pins down her legs just above the mangled area.

Between the administrations of Zoe and Hunter--and the combined efforts of Carlos, Jo, and Kat-- Ilyanna finally calms down and stops thrashing. The healing magic has done it's job. Zoe sighs in relief. "Good work everyone." She sits back on her knees and rubs her forehead with the back of her arm. The adrenaline of the fight is wearing off and you all find you could use a breather.

Hunter takes a deep breath. "Do we wake her up?"

"I..." - Carlos scratches his head - "...suppose. I'd normally just let her rest, but we got a job to do." - He looks around at the destroyed lab - "If that'll even still work."

The knight listens to her companions and nods at them. "Yeah, I hate to do that, but we really need to get moving." She approaches the teenager and carefully picks her up in her arms. "Let's move her outside."

Kathryn carries who she assumes to be Illyana outside and sits her down against the wall. If Illyana hasn't woken up yet, Kat will gently pat her cheeks until she does.

Carlos follows Kat outside, and figures the gently waking up bit is best left to her.

"Carlos, you go ahead and help lift."

Hunter digs a chair out from under some of the collapsed roof, and slumps down on it. He's actually doing fine compared to others, but between casting a cure on a screaming girl with broken legs, his cousin's heroic self-endangerment, and the sudden ooze that busted out of the building at the very start, he needs a second, and he takes it.

He dumps some water in his mouth from his own waterskin, pats Noble, and when Zoe is ready to go, he gets up to follow her.

Jo follows the others outside, stopping to put a hand on John's shoulder and lead him out too. He figures the air will do the young man good.

Outside, Ilyanna wakes up again, her eyes fluttering open slowly. She looks very tired. Her glasses are bent at the bridge, giving them the same skewed look as her hair. After looking at everyone and looking around where she is, she finally says, "One of my labs blew up. This is fantastic! No wait, it's the other thing." She's clearly looking for the word disaster or the like.

Kathryn exchanges a worried look with her friends before asking the teenager, "Illyana? Is that you?"

She blinks twice in surprise at the question as she had already started calculating her next Solution. "Hmm, what? Oh, yes, right. I am indeed Ilyanna, alchemist extraordinaire! Wow, there are so many of you! Are you robbing me?"

"Of your dessert, yeah. It got a little wild and we had to hammer it down. Almost killed a snail outside."

She looks momentarily confused until it hits her Carlos is referring to the ooze.  "I don't like snails. They're gross. Especially with apple butter. What was I thinking? But more importantly, thank you for defeating Sample 3267. I'd never would have heard the end of it if it ingested another one of Laura's cows." She looks fondly off into the distance, enjoying that memory of Flan 3267 ingesting Laura's cow before suddenly saying, "Let's get up now." She reaches out to the two of you and quickly opens and closes her hands at you. "Help please!"

Kathryn smiles at Illyana's carefree attitude and gladly helps her stand up on her two new legs. "I'd like to hear more about these samples, but... Illyana, is it normal that you look like a teenager? You're so much younger than the last time we've met."

Carlos takes her other hand and helps her up - "Vaca o no, es una manera horrible de ir. Me and Juanito got a taste of it back there, i wouldn't wish that on a slug."

Dwarven:

Her eyes go wide at Kat's question and she quickly says, "YOU MUST BE MISTAKEN...YOU. FOR SURELY THERE IS ONLY ONE ILYANNA THE ALCHEMIST OF WHICH I AM SHE. To the lab!" She marches off to the hole in her abode before anyone can comment on her obvious lie or the fact she doesn't know Kat at all, puts her hands on her hips, and surveys the damage. "Why are you people sitting in chemicals?"

Meanwhile, John quietly says to those outside, "She's lying. While Ilyanna has always been eccentric, she's never been like this. And you're right Kat, she's not my age. She's in her late forties. At least she's supposed to be."

"What was that about there being more than one Ilyanna the Alchemist?" asks a confused Jojo.

John shrugs. "What should we do? We still need that explosive."

"I kind of assumed that experiment made her younger..."

Kathryn gazes at the alchemist while focusing on her mental link with Eni.

Eni:

After some deliberation, the silver-haired knight turns toward the others and quietly says, "I think it might really be Illyana. She definitely looks like her, that's for sure. Maybe an experiment turned wrong and she not only became young again, but she also lost all of her memories as an adult. That'd explain why she's pretending to be her. Or she's an Illyana from another world. Eni says it's possible too. What do you think?"

She smiles at her friends.

Hunter is petting Noble when Ilyanna walks in. When she tells him he's sitting on chemicals, he leaps up and turns around to look at the chair. "Crap! It's not more acid, is it?"

"Well, at least she's not dull." - Carlos follows Illyana, curious to see where this is going.

"I honestly don't know, Ser Kathryn. Something clearly happened."

Jojo adjusts his hat and says, "Let's keep an eye on her for now, perhaps we can get to the bottom of this mystery in time." He follows Carlos and John falls in as well.

Zoe also gets up quickly when Hunter springs to his feet. Her pants at the knees are soaked in the stuff as is Hunter's butt.

To Hunter she says, "I don't know, maybe? Do you feel any burning sensations? Perhaps a feeling of euphoria?"

"I don't feel anything," says Zoe. "It doesn't smell very good though."

"I should hope not! Imagine, cooking a reduction of cockatrice testicles and lunar moth wings and having it smell good? HA!" She starts laughing so hard she snorts. "Anyway, hold still." She walks over to the reinforced door leading further into her home and smashes a glass case that is on the wall next to it. Inside is a big red button which she pushes. A loud klaxon horn signals three times and then a round cylinder raises up out of the floor in the middle of the room. Any debris in the way is pushed aside without incident. Ilyanna smiles in glee as she says, "Hold very still everyone! As much as it would be useful for Solution 18, I'd hate to have another chimera situation!"

"Wait, what?!"

In answer, Ilyanna cackles madly. A buzzing sound starts coming from the orb, casually growing louder and louder until it hurts everyone's ears. The device finally cracks open, spewing green moats of light everywhere within the lab with a weak pop sound. "Zone of mending deployed! You may move again!" She looks very pleased with herself.

Hunter grimaces at thought of moths and testicles being...mixed. "Chimera" means one of two very nasty surprises, so he keeps very still. Also, who is this kid and why is she wearing Ilyanna's clothes?

When it's over, he says, "That must come very handy around here. Good to see you're okay, miss. My name's Hunter. Do you live here with Ilyanna?"

Kathryn nods at Jojo and follows everyone else inside the lab. Now that the situation has returned to "normal", she has time to look at the mess the latest experiment caused. When the younger version of Illyana tells them to stay immobile, she takes no chance and does exactly as instructed. She even begins to sweat a little.

Luckily for her, it doesn't take long before she can move again, which she is grateful for. She keeps her distance from the strange device and listens to Hunter speak with the alchemist. And of course, she can't help but add with a reassuring tone, "Oh, there's no need to lie again; you can definitely trust us! We'll even help you if we can."

Rolling Diplomacy:

Carlos is just trying to accept the general weirdness and sound... natural? - "Unless you're trying for another Chimera situation. We'd rather you didn't do that."

"Oh, is your friend deaf?" She cups her hands and yells at the tiefling, "MY NAME IS ILYANNA THE ALCHEMIST! IT'S GOOD TO MEET YOU HUNTER! Ha, ha, nailed it. Yes, chimera situations will help no one right now. It's too soon, I have no chocolate! Everyone, snap at a broken thing. DO IT! We have very little time before the effect expires!" She pulls off her glasses with her left hand, snaps her fingers at it with her right, and it twists back into it's proper shape, no longer bent at the bridge. She puts it back on and starts snapping at her lab, repairing it as she goes.  

John shrugs and snaps at the roof, which leaps back into place, good as new. Zoe tries snapping at one of the tables, which decollapses itself back into perfect order.

"HA, HA, REPAIR THE LAB OF ILYANNA THE ALCHEMIST, WHICH IS ME!" she lies to you all most loudly. She is pointedly ignoring Kat.

Calors starts snapping his fingers at broken stuff - "Sounds about right, except it's me! Repair, my lab!"

Deception 15 (just in case he's taken seriously)

Kathryn is rightfully confused by the teenage looking alchemist, but she decides that repairing the lab takes priority for now, so she starts snapping her fingers at some broken jars.

Eni: