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Devlin 

---

"Capital idea..." Devlin replied to Blaidd, "I'll even bring a few specialty cocktails." And with a quick flourish of his cloak, he was off.

 

The library was his first destination. This chapterhouse was an interesting one on account of the ghostly librarian, though as Devlin considered it, pretty much every guild chapterhouse he'd been to had an odd individual looking after the archives. After some (as minimal as possible) conversation, Devlin was pointed to the correct shelves. Aberrations, super-sentient... and there they were: several tomes that referenced Beholders in some form. Kiyzaku's Study of the Eye Tyrant was the thickest tome, and Devlin pulled two others that seemed to at least reference the strange enemy. He hadn't faced one before himself, so he'd have to rely on the accounts of others, both in text and in the form of teammates who had that direct experience. He also took a quick stroll past other stacks, picking up works on cyclopses, and other one-eyed creatures for good measure.

 

Then he laid them out on a table and read them, cover-to-cover. It took him all of five minutes, and would have looked to an observer like he simply riffled through all the pages like great big flip-books. That is exactly what he did, though just prior to doing so he made a few adjustments on hand-mounted chronoshifter, set a brooch counter-clockwise ten degrees, and formed his fingers (and the several clockwork rings adorning them) to account for some specific arcanotemporal geometry. His processing went into to overdrive, and the fraction of a second it took for each page to flip past felt to Devlin like several minutes, during which time he was able to read all the information contained therein. Simultaneously, he committed each work to memory, leveraging a kind of memory stasis he'd carved out of his mind-space (or perhaps it was his memory but dispersed over any number of versions of himself existing in parallel timelines, as one academic colleague had theorized) to lock in each detail of these works. He would be able to return to them whenever he wished, recalling any detail he had set there. 

 

And that was that. Three works involving beholders, plus another handful that involved cyclopses and a variety of others there was even a small chance of meeting, committed to memory. Intelligence gathered, Devlin gave himself a bit of time to absorb a small bit of the assimilated information before heading to the planning session.

 

---

 

The planning had gone about as smoothly as one would expect when a half-dozen headstrong Hunters who thought they knew best all gathered in a room. Realistically, it had probably done better than that. Devlin hated – loathed in fact – taking orders from anyone, but Hardblade was just about the lone exception. And she'd always drilled the importance of teamwork into the members of the guild. All here were professionals, that was clear, and disagreements were skillfully worked through for the good of the mission. All seemed to agree that whatever plan they came in with would be be quickly ripped to shreds anyway as soon as the Beholders really began exerting their influence, so they were quite ready to improvise according to whatever new situation presented itself.

 

After the planning, Devlin had several hours free to pursue what he really wanted: science! The guild house had excellent facilities, and Devlin only had to pull out a small handful of his custom tools.

 

He got to work creating concoctions, and while various solutions were mixing/reacting/congealing, he studied the new nullsteel. It proved to be fascinating stuff. He'd set a very small amount aside, and poked and prodded it in various ways with a few cantrips he had the most familiar grasp of. They were completely stymied be even a small amount of the dust, even the ones that had a greater effect on the material plane. Further experiments revealed that while the nullsteel had some similar properties to the advanced alchemical impositions Devlin knew involving silver, salt, lead and small amounts or rare reagents, the underlying forces at play seemed to be quite alien in nature. Particularly how it reacted to suffusion of magical essence. Devlin nearly let one of his beakers on the burner go too long as he became distracted reading through some of Erebaun's notes. 

 

Bringing his focus back to his concoctions, Devlin spent more than four of the remaining hours working on his alchemical weaponry. The guild lab had an excellent supply of items, and Devlin used some of his advance from the mission to purchase those supplies. Prior to even coming here, he'd already created as much of the more potent, less stable, formulae as he dared, but there were a few items that would still have a lot of utility even without the usual potency. As each solution was created and neared the point of greatest potential, he set a sphere of strong impact glass on the table before him. He'd custom made each of these globes to fit easily in the palm of his hand, be easy to throw with his customized propellant rig, and even fit snugly in small specialized rigs he'd created to make attacking with the things viable, and even devastating in the right hands (his hands, as it so happened). These rigs encompassed the sphere like a small fragile cage, had small ridges that allowed them to twist and curve in midair, and even included a tiny bit of propellant on one side which served to increase distance. When his solutions were ready, he carefully injected them into the glass containers. The spheres themselves were actually quite strong and able to be stored in any one of several sashes and bandoliers Devlin wore for such things and stand up to the typical stresses of the Monster Hunter, yet when impacting a target at the right angles and velocity would burst explosively, flinging their contents in a surprisingly wide zone of pain. Or in the case of some of the items he made, extreme discomfort or restraint.

 

As he was just finishing, he looked over at the final concoction he'd produced. A gift for the others, the contents of the larger mixing carafe was just finishing dripping into the smaller flasks below it. The result was a milky fluid with a slightly violet hue, with a scent that tended to produce one of two reactions from those who took in a waft: gagging nausea, or nostril-flaring excitement. Devlin could only hope his companions on this mission were the latter.

 

---

 

"To a successful mission!" Devlin toasted a dozen minutes later to all who'd taken up Blaidd's suggestion for drinks in the taproom, "May we return with grand stories, glorious trophies, and... in this case, no one indefinitely enthralled by a mega-intelligent, reality warping, panopticlopian beast. I may or may not have just made that word up." With a wink, Devlin downed the whisky the bartender had poured him. 

 

"I present you all a gift of spirits as well. Drink now or later if you wish, though the beneficial effects last only an hour or so. You will fear robust of body and spirit, your emotions not easily swayed be malignant effects, and you'll be able to stave off drowsiness, even that which is cause unnaturally. Before you ask, it is a completely proprietary mix created by yours truly, though I can assure you it is a work of chemistry and not magic. I call it the 'Iconic Tonic.' Enjoy!" He handed out two small flasks to each of his comrades, toasting with his own much more ornately styled flask.

Devlin 

---

"Capital idea..." Devlin replied to Blaidd, "I'll even bring a few specialty cocktails." And with a quick flourish of his cloak, he was off.

 

The library was his first destination. This chapterhouse was an interesting one on account of the ghostly librarian, though as Devlin considered it, pretty much every guild chapterhouse he'd been to had an odd individual looking after the archives. After some (as minimal as possible) conversation, Devlin was pointed to the correct shelves. Aberrations, super-sentient... and there they were: several tomes that referenced Beholders in some form. Kiyzaku's Study of the Eye Tyrant was the thickest tome, and Devlin pulled two others that seemed to at least reference the strange enemy. He hadn't faced one before himself, so he'd have to rely on the accounts of others, both in text and in the form of teammates who had that direct experience. He also took a quick stroll past other stacks, picking up works on cyclopses, and other one-eyed creatures for good measure.

 

Then he laid them out on a table and read them, cover-to-cover. It took him all of five minutes, and would have looked to an observer like he simply riffled through all the pages like great big flip-books. That is exactly what he did, though just prior to doing so he made a few adjustments on hand-mounted chronoshifter, set a brooch counter-clockwise ten degrees, and formed his fingers (and the several clockwork rings adorning them) to account for some specific arcanotemporal geometry. His processing went into to overdrive, and the fraction of a second it took for each page to flip past felt to Devlin like several minutes, during which time he was able to read all the information contained therein. Simultaneously, he committed each work to memory, leveraging a kind of memory stasis he'd carved out of his mind-space (or perhaps it was his memory but dispersed over any number of versions of himself existing in parallel timelines, as one academic colleague had theorized) to lock in each detail of these works. He would be able to return to them whenever he wished, recalling any detail he had set there. 

 

And that was that. Three works involving beholders, plus another handful that involved cyclopses and a variety of others there was even a small chance of meeting, committed to memory. Intelligence gathered, Devlin gave himself a bit of time to absorb a small bit of the assimilated information before heading to the planning session.

 

---

 

The planning had gone about as smoothly as one would expect when a half-dozen headstrong Hunters who thought they knew best all gathered in a room. Realistically, it had probably done better than that. Devlin hated – loathed in fact – taking orders from anyone, but Hardblade was just about the lone exception. And she'd always drilled the importance of teamwork into the members of the guild. All here were professionals, that was clear, and disagreements were skillfully worked through for the good of the mission. All seemed to agree that whatever plan they came in with would be be quickly ripped to shreds anyway as soon as the Beholders really began exerting their influence, so they were quite ready to improvise according to whatever new situation presented itself.

 

After the planning, Devlin had several hours free to pursue what he really wanted: science! The guild house had excellent facilities, and Devlin only had to pull out a small handful of his custom tools.

 

He got to work creating concoctions, and while various solutions were mixing/reacting/congealing, he studied the new nullsteel. It proved to be fascinating stuff. He'd set a very small amount aside, and poked and prodded it in various ways with a few cantrips he had the most familiar grasp of. They were completely stymied be even a small amount of the dust, even the ones that had a greater effect on the material plane. Further experiments revealed that while the nullsteel had some similar properties to the advanced alchemical impositions Devlin knew involving silver, salt, lead and small amounts or rare reagents, the underlying forces at play seemed to be quite alien in nature. Particularly how it reacted to suffusion of magical essence. Devlin nearly let one of his beakers on the burner go too long as he became distracted reading through some of Erebaun's notes. 

 

Bringing his focus back to his concoctions, Devlin spent more than four of the remaining hours working on his alchemical weaponry. The guild lab had an excellent supply of items, and Devlin used some of his advance from the mission to purchase those supplies. Prior to even coming here, he'd already created as much of the more potent, less stable, formulae as he dared, but there were a few items that would still have a lot of utility even without the usual potency. As each solution was created and neared the point of greatest potential, he set a sphere of strong impact glass on the table before him. He'd custom made each of these globes to fit easily in the palm of his hand, be easy to throw with his customized propellant rig, and even fit snugly in small specialized rigs he'd created to make attacking with the things viable, and even devastating in the right hands (his hands, as it so happened). These rigs encompassed the sphere like a small fragile cage, had small ridges that allowed them to twist and curve in midair, and even included a tiny bit of propellant on one side which served to increase distance. When his solutions were ready, he carefully injected them into the glass containers. The spheres themselves were actually quite strong and able to be stored in any one of several sashes and bandoliers Devlin wore for such things and stand up to the typical stresses of the Monster Hunter, yet when impacting a target at the right angles and velocity would burst explosively, flinging their contents in a surprisingly wide zone of pain. Or in the case of some of the items he made, extreme discomfort or restraint.

 

As he was just finishing, he looked over at the final concoction he'd produced. A gift for the others, the contents of the larger mixing carafe was just finishing dripping into the smaller flasks below it. The result was a milky fluid with a slightly violet hue, with a scent that tended to produce one of two reactions from those who took in a waft: gagging nausea, or nostril-flaring excitement. Devlin could only hope his companions on this mission were the latter.

 

---

 

"To a successful mission!" Devlin toasted a dozen minutes later to all who'd taken up Blaidd's suggestion for drinks in the taproom, "May we return with grand stories, glorious trophies, and... in this case, no one indefinitely enthralled by a mega-intelligent, reality warping, panopticlopian beast. I may or may not have just made that word up." With a wink, Devlin downed the whisky the bartender had poured him. 

 

"I present you all a gift of spirits as well. Drink now or later if you wish, though the beneficial effects last only an hour or so. You will fear robust of body and spirit, your emotions not easily swayed be malignant effects, and you'll be able to stave off drowsiness, even that which is cause unnaturally. Before you ask, it is a completely proprietary mix created by yours truly, though I can assure you it is a work of chemistry and not magic. I call it the 'Iconic Tonic.' Enjoy!" He handed out two small flasks to each of his comrades, toasting with his own much more ornately styled flask.