Potions and Items, Desperately Needed [Open]

[jointheclub]

[The Itemcrafting classroom looks like something out of The Sword in the Stone today, with beakers, cauldrons, tubes, liquids, chests, and sundry supplies all floating around in midair, almost but not quite bumping into each other. On one side of the classroom, knives furiously chop away at roots, stalks, and bulbs; on another, large tongs stir boiling cauldrons. In the midst of all this, Slughorn directs traffic with his wand, hurrying here and there to check this process or temper this reaction.]

[Truth be told, Slughorn is running himself raw, between days of gathering up students on the Island and nights of making items and potions to repair the damage they've done to themselves. A very uncharacteristic scowl seems to have landed permanently on his face, and he is constantly mopping at the shine on his increasingly-mottled forehead. In fact, one might almost say he's showing his age...]

Don't even know why I came out of retirement. What am I, a Healer?

[He flicks his wand irritably, sending two completed sleeping draughts and a half-dozen Potions flying into a box.]

Comments

[youngnobelman]

[Eying the recipe again, Gaomon puts in just a pinch of...something.]

Why did you come back, if you don't mind my asking? I was under the impression that when humans retire, they stay retired. [Until they die.]

[jointheclub]

A life working in Garden is preferable to a life on the run from an angry populace not pleased about your world of origin.

[youngnobelman]

[Gaomon contemplates this for a moment.]

I think I understand: Back on Touma's home world, most people weren't too pleased to have digimon around.

[jointheclub]

Exactly, and my business is potions. Very little to be done when you nip down to the market with a few flasks of Skele-Gro or Veritaserum and the local guards come at you with swords.

[youngnobelman]

You couldn't just make these [a gesture encompassing all this world's healing items they're making] and blend in?

[jointheclub]

Blend in? In the Muggle world? With all their gadgets and nonsense that they've developed to take the place of sensible magic? Merlin's beard! Besides, I've done the 'running and hiding' bit once before. Not nearly up to my standards. Pointless. I realize that now.

[youngnobelman]

[Gaomon hides a grin at the idea of "sensible magic", but he nods.]

Living in hiding can be grating, I agree. Though I can't really knock gadgets: My world was created as a result of them.

[jointheclub]

I can't imagine some Muggle machine could create a whole world. Are you certain it wasn't Charmed?

[youngnobelman]

I don't know what charms are, sir. [Completely matter-of-fact.]

[jointheclub]

Magic, of course. Charms add properties and abilities to things.

[youngnobelman]

I... don't think Touma's world has anything like that. Though I can't imagine that could create a whole world.

[jointheclub]

Well it's certainly more likely than some gadget making one.

[youngnobelman]

How so?

[jointheclub]

If people could do that with ordinary devices, Muggles would be running around using them willy-nilly. The chaos would be extraordinary!

[youngnobelman]

The creation of the digital world wasn't intentional, or something that could be deliberately repeated, even if the general populace knew what it was caused by, which they don't.

[jointheclub]

All the more proof that it's magic. Muggle gadgets are everywhere, there's no way to keep them a secret for long.

[youngnobelman]

The gadgets aren't a secret; they're just not intentionally world building. And if anything, their growing popularity just seems to have added to the current world rather than creating new ones.

Has magic ever created a world?

[jointheclub]

Created one? Out of nothing? No, I can't imagine how that would happen either.