[Isaiah]

Crisis skips over one of the streams from the hot springs and slides into one of the Alchemists' stone towers. "Ey, Isaiah. You got a minute?"
Isaiah flicks one overlarge ear back, not bothering to look away from his work organizing supplies on some of the tower's shelves. "No." One glass jar. One needle. A bundle of cloth. "What do you want."
Crisis reaches back and closes her jaws around the tangle of coiled vines resting loosely around her neck. With one swift motion, she pulls the coil off and drops it unceremoniously to the floor. "Had a thought these might be useful for something. Still green and strong, hard to chew through. Yeah or no?"
Isaiah sighs, his front paws on the shelf, tail hanging limply behind. Listening to her he turns his head back, singular amber eye appraising the coil of vines. "Hm." He walks over to the vines to inspect them. "Bindings are always useful."
Crisis lolls her tongue in a self-satisfied smile. "I gotchur number, Gloomy Gus." She pads over to the shelf he had just been organizing, giving its contents a sniff. "Got anything interesting to show me today?"
Isaiah gives the girl a deadpan, one-eyed stare but doesn't disagree. When she goes to investigate the shelf Isaiah huffs. "Not up there. Those are just items from humans Azuhel brought in." He takes a moment to clear his throat, coughing first slightly and then loudly. "I don't keep anything interesting somewhere patients have easy access to, anyway."
Crisis nods, moving away from the shelf. "Smart. So where do you keep the interesting stuff?"
Isaiah gives the girl a wary look. "Your tone concerns me."
Crisis takes a seat and raises a rear leg to give her neck a scratch where the vine had begun to make it itch. "What can I say, boss? Your house, your rules, but can ya really blame a girl for bein' intarested?"
Isaiah sighs at the display. "No, I suppose not. You'll need to know about some of this anyway, I suppose, once Azuhel sends participants." He gives her a toss of the head, a gesture to follow, as he begins to pad down the hall.
Crisis immediately rises, very interested, and follows him. "Participants for what?"
Isaiah: "Just people to test on. For whatever she wants." He pads down a series of stairs to an iron grate. Grabbing a bar, he gives a sharp tug - but the door wouldn't move from his pathetic strength. He glances over at Crisis expectantly.
Crisis steps up and grabs the bar in her jaws, tugging it the way Isaiah had done but with much more force. This time, the grate swings open, leaving the path clear.
Isaiah: "Mm." Isaiah says noncommittally, about as close to a thanks as Crisis could probably expect. The surgeon walked into the small room and looked around in the shadows. "Grab a torch off one of the walls and come in here if you want to see. But be careful, if you burn my shit I'm going to make you go out and get more of it."
Crisis lets go of the bar and begins looking around for a torch, as directed. "Gotcha," she says by way of understanding, and reaches up to grab a torch in her jaws. The flame is uncomfortably close, and she winces once from the heat, but doesn't complain. Following Isaiah inside, she glaces around, taking in the room.
Isaiah: "Well." The surgeon says with a slight frown, surveying the room. Strange herbs and mushrooms lined the shelves just above eye level, and deep clay pots with round lids lined the edges of the floors - from which could be heard small rustling noises. "Hope it's interesting enough for you. I'm sure it will be more interesting on wolves than rats."
Crisis asks around the torch in her mouth, "What does this stuff do?"
Isaiah gestures to the clay pots. "Various effects. Take a look."
Crisis steps closer to one of the pots, careful of the torch in her mouth, and sniffs it.
Isaiah gives her a raised brow and scoots one of the lids off the pot she's looking at. Inside there is a rat - it hisses and jumps at the sudden light of Crisis's flames. It's mouth foams with spittle and flecks of blood and it is covered in wounds, presumably self inflicted. Trying and failing to scurry up the smooth side of the pot, and slavers at the two wolves.
Isaiah: "Hm."
Crisis cocks her head to the side. "What's wrong with it?"
Isaiah: "A reaction to the drugs."
Isaiah: "I've been testing a few things." He slides the lid back over the pot, and scoots past his student to another pot, sliding off the lid carefully and peering down. "This one is a promising sedative."
Crisis follows her mentor over to the other pot, minding the flame, and looks down to see what's inside.
Isaiah eyes the flame warily but returns to looking at the rat inside. It looked blearily up at the two wolves, docile and still and soundless.
Isaiah: "What do you think?"
Crisis thinks for a moment, watching the rat. "Useful. What are the dosages like? It's something they ingest?"
Isaiah: "Ingested, yes. Though it might work with injection too, I haven't tested."
Crisis grins around her torch. "Very cool. And we're getting wolves to test these on? Good thing I brought those vines, then!"
Isaiah frowns at her excitement. "Suppose so." He pauses and considers her. "I guess since you've been doing a lot of work around here I can start to train you on how to do some of these tests."
Crisis grins wider. "Really? That would be lovely! When can we start? Today?" Her tail starts to wag.
Isaiah sighs. "Don't sound so fucking eager." He slides the lid back onto the clay pot, sentencing the animal back to darkness. "We can do it tomorrow, they've already had doses today. I generally have replicates of six, so I've only got two trials going on right now." He says gesturing to the twelve pots around the edges of the room.
Crisis rolls her eyes at his admonishment, and continues to look eager. "Have they all had the same reactions? Any variations in response? How long have these trials been going so far?" So many questions, so little time!
Isaiah: "These trial have only been going for a few days, shit's potent." He says gesturing for her to head back out to the hall. "Variation is normal in these types of experiments, but the sedative has had a pretty stable response. The aggression-inducing drug has been a bit more volatile. One subject died and another had a much less pronounced aggression affect."
Crisis nods, absorbing the information. "Might do more rat tests for the aggro drug before we do wolves, just for more data? Also...might need cells for the wolf test subjects."
Isaiah: "No shortage of cells in Alteron." He says darkly.
Crisis nods. "At least we've got that going for us. This'll be exciting! How much longer do these rat trials have before we begin the next ones?"