[hider=Ling the Silver Vial]
[b]Name:[/b] Ling the Silver Vial
[b]Age:[/b] 24
[b]Gender:[/b] Female

[b]Mastery:[/b] Nightshade
[b]Specialty:[/b] Alchemist
[b]Rank:[/b] Adept

[b]Appearance:[/b] As Ling originates from the Dragon Empire of the eastern plains, she is Imperial in appearance and stature; she stands at five feet seven inches tall and is notably lightweight. Her black hair is always tied back in a short ponytail; no sense in letting it get everywhere. She has brown eyes, almost always behind protective glasses out of habit.

Ling can usually be found wearing black pants and a simple black-and-white tunic with long sleeves (which are rolled up when working). Her tunics bear her personal emblem in silver thread: a potion vial with an Imperial dragon curled around it. When travelling, Ling will often don a wide straw hat and a pack to hold textbooks, journals, and similar bulky items. She supplements her outfit with a belt of pouches to hold potion ingredients and the tools to work them, and two sets of leather straps. The first is fitted with loops and pockets to hold potion vials, plus a sheath to hold a silver knife. The second keeps her weapon of choice secured on her back.

[b]Equipment:[/b] Aside from a bag of Imperial silver, her usual supplies of potion ingredients, and the tools a travelling Alchemist would normally need, Ling carries a custom-made crossbow and four rectangular boxes of bolts called autoquivers.

The crossbow has several modifications from the standard model: its arms can fold inward for ease of transport; a lever on the side, when pulled, draws the string back without the need for extensive strength; and the stock's space for ammunition is twice the width of a standard crossbow. This last feature allows Ling to fire either standard-issue bolts from a fitted autoquiver, or potion vials that explode on impact, scattering their contents across a patch of land or group of opponents - or allies.

Ling had her crossbow - which she fondly nicknames "Kei" - and its autoquivers custom-built for her purposes. Each autoquiver holds fifteen bolts, and bolts can be replaced at any blacksmith. One of her autoquivers is marked with a skull and crossbones, the classic indicator of poison, indicating she has applied poison to each bolt in that pack.

[b]Demeanour:[/b] Some paint the Nightshades as sullen, selfish individuals who seek only a means to achieve their own ends. Ling is almost the exact opposite. She's cheery and outgoing, willing to help others in a situation even if there's no up-front benefit to her. In this sense she might be considered a tiny bit naive. She does, however, have a particular devotion to her alchemy; while working, she enters a state of focus in which nothing outside of the immediate area matters until her task is complete. There's no sense in leaving a potion of any kind half-finished; as a result, Ling ensures she has everything in order before she starts work.

Ling also makes a point of keeping notes on all of her standard-issue potions and experiments. She finds the latter much more interesting than the former: there's no sense of discovery in copying the methods used by the textbooks. She has already filled several journals with these notes, in addition to memorising all of the more commonly made recipes (some of which have her own unique spin on them).

Despite being of the Nightshade mastery, Ling shies away from Sitheria, God of Darkness. Instead, she favours two others of the Council: Alainia, God of Water; and Loriot, God of Fire. Ling believes that Alainia and Loriot, while opposed in their Elements and her own, are the closest to Alchemy at its core.

[hider=History]
[b]History:[/b]
The Dragon Empire is a fascinating culture. There, the long, snakelike Imperial dragons are revered in almost any art form you would care to mention. Statuary, paintings, the written word, even architecture. Little is seen of the majestic creatures, as they are often hostile to human life and civilisation, yet at the same time the Empire reveres the dragons for their grace and beauty.

Of course, Ling knows nothing of the Empire firsthand, as she was shipped overseas to another Academy at the age of three, when she was tested for magical potential like all Imperial children. There is no Academy in the Dragon Empire: in the year 73 AW, after the destruction of the first Imperial Academy - whether as a result of a spell gone awry or a deliberate act of arson was never found out - Emperor Jutai Fallen Leaf declared that his lands would play host to no mage. To this day, all Imperial children are tested for magical power at an early age. Those that show the signs are shipped elsewhere, and may apply for Imperial citizenship at the age of nineteen despite being confined to Academy life.

The young Ling was part of a group of fifteen Imperial children sent to the Academy, filtered into the Nightshade mastery with two others. Her grasp on shadow magic was limited, while the other young Nightshades reveled in their new-found power. But she persisted, not wishing to fall behind. Eventually, at the age of twelve, the path of the Alchemist was opened to her, and she threw herself into it.

Ling found alchemy intriguing; the chemical transmutation of simple, disparate ingredients into a greater, more powerful whole. She didn't care that the Masters had chosen to wait to see whether her skills would develop. This was where she would thrive, she told herself, pushing her limits on a regular basis. She caught up to her fellow students, those the same age who had chosen their paths before her, within six months, and didn't stop there.

During her later teenage years, Ling volunteered for journeys outside the Academy. Whether the gathering of unusual ingredients that couldn't be found in the Academy's gardens, eliminating a group of bandits before they could attack a nearby town, or just providing an escort for a trip for younger mages, she wanted in on them. She wanted to see what life was like outside the walls. While she has never visited the Dragon Empire on one of these journeys - it is a long way - she studied the region and its culture during this time.

At the age of eighteen, she accompanied a caravan of supplies leaving the Academy for the purposes of trade. She supported the caravan's guards for most of the trip there and back, fending off unwanted company. But while they fought with magical prowess, she hurled vials and passed restoratives to those who needed them. On the way back to the Academy, she ran out of potions, having only prepared a dozen beforehand. It was only after documenting her experiences that Ling realised that potions and poisons simply weren't enough to be properly supportive. She had to be able to cause some effective damage herself; otherwise, she was just another body the caravan guards needed to protect. So she began researching means of expanding upon the simple act of throwing potion vials to cause harm.

There was a recent innovation in throwing short spears from a Metallic kid, that she jumped on and experimented with. While the technique was certainly effective for the javelin, it was almost useless for throwing potions. Too inaccurate without a proper guidance system. And then came the brainwave. A crossbow, modified ever so slightly to accept the small vials she used frequently. Ling, still at the rank of Mage at this time, went to a Metallic Weaver with a bag of coins in one hand and her notes in the other. The Weaver and the Mage spent the next few weeks on her customised weapon, ranging from sourcing the required materials to Ling providing several potion-related favours. But after a month of work, the crossbow was finally finished, and with a few extra modifications for ease of use. Calibrated perfectly for the throwing of vials with just enough force to catapult them a good distance, but not enough to shatter them when she pulled the trigger. As a bonus gift, the customised weapon, which Ling named "Kei", came with a set of long box-shaped containers of crossbow bolts, to be fitted atop the weapon.

Submissions of high-strength potions for examination, as well as a short written paper on her vial-launching crossbow, earned Ling the rank of Adept soon after she turned nineteen. And with this promotion came her choice of title: she became Ling the Silver Vial.

[hider=Note about Imperial Naming Customs]
Surnames are uncommon in the Dragon Empire: instead, titles chosen by the individual are the norm. Whether a title comes before or after the given name is up to the individual, but a title will always have some reflection of the person choosing it. To give examples, an adventurer might call himself "Explorer Lun", while a Metallic Elemental might refer to himself as "Shang the Steel Hand".

An Imperial citizen will usually choose his or her title at the age of nineteen, when Imperial law deems them a legal adult.
[/hider]

But now that she had passed the first of her trials, Ling had even more work to do. So she got stuck into it, working late into the night to complete her projects and supplementing her midnight studies with restorative draughts to keep her awake and focused. It was here that shadow magic began to play a part in Ling's studies once more: the art of drawing a fragment of one's own shadow into a bottle to serve as an ingredient called an umbral reagent. A grasp on this particular alchemical discipline eluded Ling for several years, to the point where she began to experiment, finishing the textbook's recipes without the regents.

Every one of them blew up in her laboratory. Without the use of umbral reagents, the Adept-tier recipes were unstable; they needed the refining qualities of the reagents to blend components that - as Ling learned the hard way - reacted badly to one another.

Ling saw this only as another obstacle. She pushed herself harder, driving herself to find a way to either follow the textbook's methods, or create an alternative to the use of umbral reagents. She asked Weavers and historians, gathered the most odd or unusual of components, all in the name of solving this problem. Three years after becoming an Adept, she knew every Adept recipe back to front, but had little practical experience because she still struggled to bottle a tiny piece of her own shadow. But no matter what she tried, her experiments resulted in wasted efforts, not even acidic enough for throwing at something.

Frustrated, Ling stormed out of the Academy with Kei on her back. She hitched a ride with a caravan to one of the nearby cities, seeking something - anything - she hadn't used yet. There was nothing. So, having spent the day searching with no result except a box of vials from a glassblower and a pack of crossbow bolts from the blacksmith - each traded for a trio of Ling's homebrew all-nighter tonics - she settled into a seat in the caravan with a profound sense of having wasted her time.

Halfway back to the Academy, the caravan was ambushed.

[hider=Bolts and Blood]
"You alright there, miss Ling? You're looking like a bee got under your hat."

"I'm fine. Just keeping an eye on the road." Ling's response was terse and quiet. As always when travelling, she had Kei in her hands, an autoquiver in place. It was better to be safe than sorry, she reasoned, especially since she was the only mage on this trip.

The caravan rounded a corner in the road, to find the path blocked by a makeshift barricade: logs, hastily jammed into place to hinder passage. The driver spat over the side. "Sons of... we've got company." Almost instantly, Ling was on her feet, her weapon up and aimed. Four bandits leaped from their hiding places, an assortment of weapons in hand.

"Get behind me," was Ling's command to the driver before she pointed Kei at the closest of the ragtag bunch. "I am Ling the Silver Vial. If you have even a scrap of self-preservation, you will dismantle this barricade and allow us to pass."

The lead bandit just chuckled. "Yer pretty words dun mean nuthin, girlie. Drop the weapon."

"Oh, you want simpler words? Fine. The bolt in my crossbow is poisoned. One cut is all it takes." It was a bluff, but a carefully crafted one. The man flinched, but recovered his composure.

"There's six of us an' one of you. Y'can't take us all on."

[i]Too dumb to count. Not worth the effort of negotiations.[/i] Ling pulled the trigger. The bolt hit him straight in the chest, like she'd trained. She didn't even watch the man fall, instead yanking on Kei's reset switch to reload before putting another shot into the second bandit. One of the outlaws tried to rush for the horse pulling the caravan; if they couldn't take the whole thing, they could at least cripple it, preventing it from moving. Out flashed a thrown vial, shattering on contact and dousing the rogue in acidic fluid. He flailed away from the caravan, screaming as the poison ate at his face.

An arrow, crudely made, punched through the side of the caravan. Ling looked up to find the last bandit standing on a thick branch, carrying a bow and quiver. The second shot grazed the back of her hand; it was Ling's turn to flinch as she felt blood seep out from her skin. But she raised Kei and launched a series of bolts upward, peppering the archer's perch and knocking him out of his vantage point. He was dead before he hit the ground.

And just like that, it was over. The one that Ling had hit with the acidic vial remained only in cries, as he had dashed away to find water. Ling spun to the inside of the caravan. "Is everyone all right?"

The caravan master, two young boys and a lady in a sunhat were hiding, trying to make themselves as small as possible. Breathing slowly to calm herself, Ling collapsed Kei's arms and stowed the crossbow on her back, hands open to show she meant no harm. Even an Alchemist was still a mage. "It's okay, they're gone. The fighting's over."

"A-Are you sure, miss?"

"Positive."

"If you're certain... hell's gates, miss Ling, you did quite the number on them," the caravan master murmured as he peered out at the scene. He jumped down to check on the horse, which was skittish and restless.

"I didn't hit him with the vial, did I?" she queried.

"No, no, he seems fine."

"Oh, good. Last thing we needed was a panicked horse."

"Last thing we needed was this damn ambush. If'n you can give a hand with getting these logs out the way, that'd be aces. C'mon, boys, time to earn your keep." The man beckoned to the two lads in the caravan, who jumped out and hurried to help him with the barricade. Ling hesitated, however, taking the time to examine her hand, which had taken a glancing blow. There was no sign of poison affecting the area, which was always a good sign. However, as she raised her hand to study it in the light, the entire injury turned solid grey, even the thin trail of blood. Ling dabbed at the viscous liquid with one finger; it remained the same grey-black colour.

Ling could feel the presence of her shadow magic, stronger than ever. Inspired, she hurried to her space in the caravan, drew a vial from its box and collected the shed blood within. The glass and its contents seemed to glow in her hand.

[i]Reagent magic will become easier over time as you get used to touching your shadow. Ordinarily an intangible presence, the spell twists your shadow's properties, changing it, allowing you to gather it in your hand as you would do with mundane water. When the preparation stage is complete, pour a handful into a vial and allow it to sit for a few minutes until it turns darker and thicker, similar to blood.[/i]

The paragraph on umbral reagents came to Ling's mind easily. The vial's contents were almost an exact match to the accompanying sketch. But she hadn't done as the textbook prescribed. It was almost involuntary, like her shadow magic was called to the spilled blood, mixing of its own accord.
[/hider]

Ling bested the bandits easily, thanks to Kei and an acidic vial. When the trip was concluded and Ling was safe in her laboratory, she drew out a vial of blood she had collected after the fight and examined it. It bore all the physical signs of an umbral reagent, as described in her textbooks, but there was only one way to be sure it had the alchemical properties of one. Ling quickly prepared an introductory Adept potion for regeneration of injuries. Two bright red flasks, whipped up within minutes... all that remained was to blend the two together in the same flask as the reagent, according to the book.

So she tipped her vial of infused blood into a flask, lit a fire beneath it, and tentatively poured the other two in with the grey, holding her breath all the while. The three liquids began to bubble and merge, aided by Ling's tentative stirring, then the potion turned a bold, dark red, unlike the two from a minute before. No explosion. No shattering of glass.

Ling had found the key, her way to progress as an Adept. Her first priority, however, was to inform the Masters, to ensure she wasn't breaking any rules or wouldn't accidentally poison anyone with her blood-fueled potions. The ensuing discussion was intense, thorough, and more than a little scary; she was called on to repeat the creation under a Master's scrutiny. She managed it, though, and didn't poison him in the process. That was always good; there was often a chance that a healing potion, even one made to the letter, could turn out to be lethal. And since she was dealing with previously uncharted territory, anything could happen. But nothing did. The shadow-infused blood acted in the exact same manner as an ordinary umbral reagent.

After another hour of talks with the Masters, Ling was cleared to continue her work in this unusual fashion. And continue she did. She took to carrying a knife to draw her own blood for her reagents. Coaxing shadow magic into the shed blood quickly became easier, aided by restoratives and regeneration potions, but she couldn't draw too much too quickly or she would have to wait even longer to resume her work. She depended on being in some degree of physical fitness, to ensure she could heal quickly from the cuts she inflicted on herself. Thankfully, any scars she might have gathered were quickly healed by her own creations. And occasionally an Illuminate healer, in the first stages of her experiments when she cut too deep and caused more pain than she had intended.

After several years of further study, Ling is slowly working her way through her textbooks. She still relies on drawing blood to produce her reagents instead of just drawing scraps of shadow directly. While she understands the Masters' concern for her variation on the core practices, she still feels a tiny bit held back by their observations. Her method is unusual, but just as effective as the standard procedure. But she brushes it off, and tries to be her usual bright and cheery self; the Masters do what they do for a reason.
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