Later that afternoon, the team is crammed into a private lab suite at the alchemy guild.
Books stack high in precarious towers, reagents bubble in controlled flasks, and a magnified crystal lens apparatus flickers with runic light. At the center of it all, Vuvi hunches over a microscope contraption, muttering and fidgeting with knobs, her goggles reflecting the eerie shimmer of the strange, iridescent liquid sample beneath the lens.
The others sprawl out around the lab in various states of curiosity and impatience. Sera twirls a glass rod between two fingers, Penelo snoozes lightly with her legs draped over the arm of a chair, Lula taps her heel against the floor in an idle, restless rhythm, and Zora hovers like a quiet shadow, arms folded, watching Vuvi like a hawk.
Pip sits off to the side on a comically undersized stool, politely silent but pulsing tiny waves of encouragement toward Vuvi as she works.
