Kennen casually rubbed his thumb along the spine of the book he was carrying as he rapped lightly on the door. He was half dreading, half intrigued by, this academic; it had been a while since he spent any sort of time among scholars.

"Oh, come in."

He reached for the door, stifling a sigh in his throat. He was interrupting something, of that he was sure. He hoped that it was just being engrossed in a book or enjoying a small meal, as he had just come from doing.

The first thing he noticed was the smell. It reminded him vaguely of the prison, but more pointedly of the slums. Victor had his back turned, leaning over his breakfast table. Kennen took the opportunity of being unobserved to let his face tighten into a grimace for a few seconds as he swiftly ducked around the half-open door to keep the smell in the room. No sense in letting it out, after all. "I hope I haven't come at a bad time, ser." And then there was the smell of burning.

"Oh, not at all Kennen, although there's no need for undue formalities." Victor turned to catch his visitor in his peripheral vision as he turned down a burner. "Victor is just fine." It was then that Kennen noticed the clutter. No, clutter was too tame for this room, it was suffocation. Everything upturned, moved around, even taken off of the walls to make more flat surfaces for equipment. Already he was sure of how to give Victor what he wanted.

"Yes, well… You've certainly been busy. I haven't seen this much brewing since I oversaw a winery." He cautiously made his way to the centre of the room, where there was a little more room to stand. "I brought for you that third book we grabbed from the prison's library. Sign of good faith and all."

Victor's back straightened at that gesture, and he sidestepped around the corner of the table to be able to make eye contact with Kennen. "Thank you." There was a small glimmer in his eye for a moment, and Kennen knew he was in. And then, the glimmer was gone, replaced by concentration as he looked back down at his working hands. "You can set it down on the bed if you like, I'm afraid you can't reach my bookshelves at the moment." It was then that Kennen saw the… – rat? Squirrel? He went with 'animal' – that Victor was working on. "Actually, I could use a distraction. I'd like to know how you got caught."

The corner of Kennen's mouth twitched at Victor's bluntness. "Well, I assume you know what I was arrested for?"

Victor dipped his head. "Slaving."

Kennen rolled his eyes. "No, not for procuring, just for selling them." Of course, to almost everyone, the difference was either lost or irrelevant. He was able to keep the feeling of disappointment from crawling across his face; once someone knew he dealt in slaves, it felt like nothing else was worth knowing about him. "I forgive you for mistaking the distinction," he finished with a sarcastic tint. Victor merely nodded. Kennen knelt down to lay the book on the bed, taking a moment to run his fingers across the cover one last time. "I don't know who ratted me out, but it was one of my assassination clients."

"Oh, really?" Victor's tone was one of genuine interest. "How do you know that?"

Kennen smirked. "Kennen is the name I use--well, I guess 'used' is more accurate--when dealing with that sort of work. 'Pol' was my name for trading in slaves. But I'm quite fond of Kennen. I think I'll keep that name for our group." He stood back up at that point, relishing in the odd expression Victor gave in his direction. "But anyway, I was supposed to have a cover to keep the guards away from this particular manor, but clearly he didn't do his job. That's the last time I take a connection for a paramour!" He lifted himself up on his toes to get a little better view of Victor's work and immediately regretted that decision. He would have to remember to ask him to harvest pigs, on second thought. He did need more bladders. "Well, that was a little long, but that's about all that's worth telling as to how I ended up shackled next to you all."Kennen summarized, he had visually kept Victor's attention to varying degrees as the alchemist dissected a rat cadaver.

Sometimes he'd nod as he worked, other times he'd ask questions or for clarification. Once or twice he even looked up and gave Kennen his full attention, though his hands never stopped moving with practised ease.

Victor's room had been turned upside down in an almost literal fashion, he had transposed his mattress to the floor so he could use the bed frame and window shutters into ad-hock lab table. Almost every piece of open table space between the bed, the coffee table, the chairs and even the steamer trunk the Lab equipment had been carried in, all of it was covered in burners and vials and bubbling fluids of various hues.

"I can't really say I condone slavery, however I do accept one does what one must to survive, and given the circumstances I'm not exactly in a position to judge." He gestures to the F brand on his forearm, just above his gloves.

The former slaver gives the scientist an odd look. "You know, you never really went into detail about how you wound up with that."

Now it was Victor's turn to give his companion an odd look. "I'm fairly certain I got it the same way you did, at the business end of a branding iron wielded by an obese sadist."

Kennen shook his head, "No I mean, you said you got put away for sedition, and you don't really look like the type to rouse a rebellion."

"Really?"

"It's the hair."

Victor fiddled self consciously with his unruly mane of hair that was slashed with a streak of white, accidentally dabbing blood onto it, though he seemed to either not notice or not care.

"What's wrong with my hair?"

"Well it screams 'dangerously unstable' for a start, but point is I've seen all sorts and I've got a decent eye for people. You trying to get a bunch of magicians to turn on the government doesn't seem all that likely to me, at least not with any degree of success."

Victor turned back to his work, neatly removing organs from the tiny corpse on the table, but all the while wore a sad smile.

"Would I be here if I had succeeded?"

"No, but you seem smart enough that to know that talking treason could get you killed. So why are you here?"

At this Victor gave pause before leaning gently onto his ad-hock lab table. "Because when one comes to recognize an illness they have a duty to stop it before it spreads."

The alchemist's eyes slid onto Kennen, "You want to know why I did it? It's a long story."

The lithe man gave a hesitant nod, and the wild eyed scientist began turning burners down to simmer and gently placed his scalpel on the table.

"This all started… hell, I started down this path when I was a boy."

"Let me guess, you were cutting up small animals then too," Kennen snarked.

Victor smiled playfully at the verbal jab. "Of course not," he replied as he lifted a bubbling beaker and swirled the contents. "I was cutting up big ones."

The former slaver frowned in confusion, looked from the table to Victor and back again. "Well," he finally spoke. "At least you've made progress."

The alchemist rolled his eyes, "My father was a hunter and a part time taxidermist; he had me help."

"That's…surprisingly sensible, and at the same time vaguely disappointing," Kennen replied.

"What, you'd prefer I was some kind of sociopath?"

"What, you aren't?"

Victor narrowed his eyes at his companion. "Let's go with eccentric. Anyway, my father was a hunter and he would sometimes accompany the more financially substantial on hunts as a guide of sorts. His little hunting parties would often return with some large prize that the rich tag-alongs had bagged and he would come back with bags full of silver."

"My mother was a woodcarver and a devout worshipper of Mitra." His face contorts into one simmering with anger, he turns and resumes his work, but his movements are sharp and tainted with his rising ire.

"Between the two of them I never went hungry, and even though we lived on the outskirts of our village we never had too much trouble. I was never afraid of the forest as a child; I thought of it as my father's forest. I childishly believed I was safe there and one day went exploring."

"I went farther than I ever had before and stumbled onto a lone hut in the middle of the wood. There was this old crone standing over a cauldron muttering to herself and tossing bits and bobs into the roiling brew. And being the inquisitive little thing that I was, I walked up to her and when she stopped muttering asked her what she was doing."

As Victor was about to continue he noticed that his companion appeared to be completely stupefied.

"What? I was curious; all children are."

Kennen blinked the bafflement from his eyes. "You do realize she was a witch, right?"

Victor shrugged, "Later yes, but up until that point I hadn't even heard of a witch outside of what other children had said in passing. Not the most accurate information to go off of, besides Auntie Whispers was pretty nice and never once tried to eat me, guess I got off lucky. Anyway she was just about as surprised as you were. I think it took a solid minute for her to respond."

"She said she was trying to get some helpers, since she had some chores that needed doing. Having all the foresight that an eleven year old boy had at my disposal, I quickly realized that if I did her chores that I might get some sweets or something and promptly offered my services in exchange for a sweet roll."

"We struck a deal and after an hour or two chopping wood and other household hassles I was sitting in the middle of the nice old ladies hut waiting for my sweet roll. While my treat was cooking I saw something I had never seen before, a bookshelf."

"Neither of my parents could read and the same could be said of my friends, so I asked what all those things on the shelf were, and she informed me that they were books. Having no idea what that meant I asked what they did, she said they held knowledge and sometimes worlds that existed only on paper."

"Naturally I wanted to see what that looked like. Auntie Whispers pulled an old tome off the shelf, and I saw pictures of plants and all these scribbles, and asked what I was looking at. She told me it was a recipe for a pulp to stop an ivy rash from itching."

Victor finally broke off from his story as he grinned at the memory, "That was where it all began, that book, I wanted to know how someone who wasn't a priest could do something like that. I asked her if she could teach me, and we made another deal. I would come down every week and do chores for her and she would show me how to read. She also taught me how to make simple ointments and potions."

"Then on the last day of my lessons she told me she had to go visit family and that this would be where we parted." Victor sighed wistfully, "And that was the last I saw of Auntie Whispers."

"Well, at least now I know you've always been an odd duck." Kennen snorted, "What kind of child would be interested in potion making?

Victor stiffened. "Potion making let me do thing I once thought impossible; my mother warned me away from magic, saying it was the working of 'The Enemy'. But potion making is the mixture of science and magic and my mother never saw it as evil, especially since potions are used by the church."

"My parents pooled some money when they realized I had a talent and sent me to the Academy. Though my father made me promise not to neglect my body for my mind."

Kennen nodded approvingly, "I thought you had a bit more meat than your average scholar."

"Yes well, fitness regimen aside my stay at the Academy was fairly standard. I apprenticed under Master Talcus Bottlebee; he showed me how much I had been missing." Victor gestured wildly as he told his tale, very nearly spilling some nasty blackish purple substance. "Not just the hows, but the ever important WHY!"

Victor punctuated his declaration by pouring the purple liquid into a yellow sludge which resulted in dramatic FWOOMP as a hazy blue smoke erupted from the flask. The alchemist fanned away the fumes to reveal a fluid that looked awfully similar to mother of pearl.

"I was studying to be a chirurgeon you know; I wanted to help people. Save lives." Victor's face seemed to age ten years in the course of seconds. "But that was a long time ago."

"When in private Talcus urged me to leave for the mainland and study abroad, but I wanted to stay with him, and after all my family was on Talingarde. My master passed away in his sleep shortly after I had finished studying under him; he was old and though I mourned him I was sure he was at peace. It was after that I began to notice thing that I had once thought normal. Books from the library were routinely removed from the shelves and burned for 'heretical content', anyone who spoke against the Headmaster had trouble with funding, and I learned that now my apprenticeship was complete I was required to fill a quota by the end of each month."

Victor bowed his head, "Talcus had been shielding me from the headmaster, slipping me books that were destined to be burned and trying to keep my dream alive. One of the difficult things about expectations is that reality often has no interest in meeting them."

"I was determined, met my quotas, and asked the Headmaster for a cadaver to practice my surgical techniques on. The look of utter disgust on his face is still fresh in my mind. He informed me that no such thing would happen as tampering with the dead was an affront to Mitra and his church. I tried to explain that it was in order to save lives, that it was for the greater good, but he wouldn't listen and told me he better not hear of this again, and that I should focus on making healing potions for the church."

Kennen smiled and leaned against the wall, "Let me guess, you listened to him and obediently made potions for the rest of your days."

Victor let out a barking laugh. "Hell no, I became a back alley doctor slash veterinarian, pulling teeth, setting broken limbs, and carving up the cow cadavers that came to the butcher. He liked that he didn't need to pay me, and said I had some real talent."

"I even approached some farmers about cattle that were still alive and convinced a few that a few minutes alone for medical examination was worth a few pieces of gold." Whatever good cheer had been on Victor's face abruptly vanished. "It was about six months into this that I received a letter from my father. My mother had been taken ill, and some priests had come to heal her in exchange for the 'usual fee'. It was steep, but they paid it; my father said mother didn't want to send a letter to worry me, that she would be fine and 'Mitra will see to me, we have nothing to worry about'."

Deep seated hatred set in the face of Victor Von Verrück as his eyes burned with anger. "You remember how in the contract we were allowed to insert the name of the god we worshipped?" He didn't even turn to address his companion, his eyes bore into the splayed rat as if to light it on fire.

"Yeah," Kennen acknowledged. "That was for Pia's and Fel's benefit right?"

"Correct." Victor hardly moved even as he spoke. "On mine I wrote 'Science', not as some joke, but because that is the only thing I believe in. When I call upon it, it answers, and if it does not then there is a reason for it; it fulfils what it promises." Victor was gripping his lab table with such fury that it was letting out groans of protest and his eyes were tinged with hints of a madness that had nothing to do with anger.

"That was the moment it all fell into place, that was when I first saw my enemy. Either Mitra or his church had wholly betrayed us. Betrayed my mother, betrayed my family, betrayed me. I saw the cancer of the church for what it was, infecting every corner of the country, every business, FOR WHAT?!" He snatched up the scalpel and drove it through the rat cadaver's heart and into the table beneath as he shouted.

"TO DO NOTHING BUT FULFIL THEIR OWN TWISTED GREED AND BIND ALL WITH THEIR INSIPID DOCTRINE"

He rounded on Kennen and got far to close for the former slavers comfort. "THEY DEMAND TRIBUTE, THEY DEMAND PRAYER, THEY DEMAND OBEDIENCE, THEY DEMAND EVERYTHING YOU HAVE AND MORE, BUT IT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH! IN THE END IT'S ALL A LIE! THOSE BASTARDS SPOKE PRETTY WORDS OVER HER HEAD AND TOLD HER SHE WAS FINE! SHE COULD HAVE SENT FOR ME, I COULD HAVE HELPED, I COULD HAVE SAVED HER BUT THEY TOLD HER SHE WAS FINE! AND NOW SHE'S ROTTING IN THE GROUND BEYOND THE REACH OF ANY MEDICINE!"

Victor spun on his heel and began to pace furiously and brought his voice to a saner level, "I tried to warn them, tried to get them to leave as Master Talcus had urged me. I talked to every one of my colleagues, trying to get them out of Talingarde. The church of Mitra doesn't LIKE practitioners because in their minds magic comes from Asmodeus. and Asmodeus is The Enemy so magic must be EVIL!"

"I told them we had to leave, leave and warn the rest of the world about this insane fanaticism. A Plague doesn't stop because it's consumed its host, it will spread as far as it can. I told them it was a matter of time before they turned on us. That they would the moment we stopped being useful. How many unused rooms did the Academy have? It didn't even have a tenth of the attendance it used to!"

"I told them if we left we might be able to drum up support, maybe get some other countries to intervene, put an end to this madness."

Victor stop pacing and seemed to vibrate in utter unadulterated Hate.

"But then that CHEAP, NO GOOD, LYING, ROTTEN, SNAKE LICKING, DIRT EATING, INBRED, OVERSTUFFED, IGNORANT, BLOODSUCKING, BRAINLESS, DICKLESS, HOPELESS, HEARTLESS, FATASS, BUG EYED, STIFF LEGGED, SPOTTY LIPPED, WORM HEADED SACK OF MONKEY SHIT OF A HEADMASTER HAD ME ARRESTED!"

"THAT SHIT EATING COCKGOBBLER SAID THAT THE LOSS OF THAT MANY SKILLED PRACTITIONERS ALONG WITH THE LOSS IN REVENUE THAT THE SALE OF POTIONS BRINGS TO THE CHURCH COUPLED WITH THE ATTEMPT TO HAVE FOREIGN POWERS INTERFERE WITH GOVERNMENT AND CHURCH POLICIES WOULD HAVE BEEN TREASON! AND THAT I'D BE TRIED FOR SEDITION!"

Finally the head of steam Victor had built up seemed to pass and he slumped into the single chair in the room that wasn't currently covered in lab equipment.

"As the guard carted me off all my Colleagues turned out to watch me go; I told them this was the beginning, that they would come for them next, unless they did something now."

His laugh was utterly devoid of humour, "They just stood there and did nothing. I'd known these people for decades and not one of them could meet my gaze. Everyone I had ever trusted, everyone I had once called friend, didn't so much as lift a finger as they hauled me away."

Victor stood and once again got far too close for Kennen's liking. "That's why I'm here, because I refused to be an ambitionless little drone. Because I dared to imagine greater things. Because I wanted my name in the history books."

He turned and grabbed his journal before returning to his seat and began to write in it furiously.

"Well like it or not, that's where I'm going to be; if I can't help people, I'll destroy people. A tumour is best dealt with by surgical removal."

Kennen leaned over the scribbling scientists shoulder to look at the journal, it was filled with notes, formulas, and sketches anatomical in nature, though there also appeared to be mechanical sketches here and there. There was also a list of animals with 'shark' circled with its own notes 'Heavy Underwater Crossbows, Nets, Modified Grappling Bolts, Alchemical fire and oil mixture needs developing, Crowbars'

"What's all that about?" Kennen asked hesitantly.

Victor finished scribbling 'investigate capabilities of Homunculi' into his notebook, before snapping it shut.

"Kennen, we have more or less been hired to be revolutionaries, correct? To overthrow the current government."

"Sound about right."

"How do you think we can accomplish it?"

Ken stewed that over for a moment before responding. "A coup most likely, cut off the head and the body dies. There aren't enough of us for any real battles or sieges."

"Precisely, and this," He tapped his book, "is for when all those plans fail. When we've run the gamut from A to Z, this will be the ultimate fallback option."

The alchemist grinned a grin that more a showing of teeth rather than an expression of joy.

"The church has gone unopposed for quite a number of years now, and a proper show of force will surprise them." He flipped through the journal; dozens of pages were filled to the brim with equations, notes, and ideas. "But it will require research; it will require ingredients, and money, and, most importantly, time."

"So while we pull our ploys and run our gambits, I'll be preparing. While parts are played and contacts made, I'll be preparing. While kings fall and clergymen rise, I'll be preparing. Because the source of this corruption isn't a single serpent we can slay with a single sword stroke. It is a hydra with many heads, each worse than the last."

"And once our little movement is discovered, it WILL be a witch hunt. Force must answer force, so we need an army. A revolutionary army, and no matter how many civilian we may possibly be able to turn to our side, they will be outnumbered and untrained."

The smile had widened into a mad Cheshire grin.

"That's where I come in. I will perform a magic trick like none other, and pull an army out of a hat. And that day, everyone will know the name. Victor. Von. Verrück."