<strong>Name:</strong>Valentine Karskaja<br/><strong>Professions:</strong>Investigator / Alchemist<br/><strong>Damage Capacity</strong><br/><em>Physique:</em>5<br/><em>Agility:</em>3<br/><em>Intellect:</em>5<br/><strong>Defense:</strong>12<br/><strong>ARM:</strong>10*<br/><strong>Feat Points:</strong>3<br/><hr/><br/>With the first jolt of a single step down the chapel, a spark was ignited. The lung-searing cold and the bloodless color of the young woman slung withers told Valentine she was already dead, but new information contradicted. Analyze. Isolate. What was happening here, and why?<br/><br/>Nervous fingers rolled over her gloved thumbs and wore down the material before its time. Another jolt of her too-firmly reached leg finding the second step, and what had been a mental spark had grown sevenfold into a flash of lightning. In the afterimage she recalled herself consulting a travelogue of interest.<br/><em>....bear striking differences when compared to their Iosan cousins; the Nyss are etoliated, both tall and thin, with skin pigmentation white as powdered bone...</em><br/>The single flash of lightning became a bolt. Out of the charged and ready particles of the mind, it branched innumerable bright white forks. Connections were formed. A treatise on the Nyss from her history lessons lit up.<br/><em>...shard consists of a small, tribal band, whose population is decided by the conditions of the land. Numbers lost to lean winters are not readily replenished due to... </em><br/>By the jolt of the third step each branch was further dividing into fractal fireworks. Electricity crept from the fringes of her mind, and conjured from a briefing she had glimpsed years ago, a warning.<br/><em>...aggressively territorial, known to stalk intruders and kill from a distance without making themselves known... </em><br/>For just a moment, she paused. This was very dangerous. Eyes trained to pick out the snow owls from the snow and the striped moths from the birch bark scanned the darkness of familiar Nynsk. She continued, and the electrical storm in her brain became harmonious, whole, fully realized. It came to her suddenly why she kept thinking back to a tome on living fossil trees. A symphony emerged from the clamor.<br/><br/>An ash-blackened glove pinched between her teeth, and she reached her bare fingers to feel the young woman's neck.<br/><em>...slow warming of the body to coax the blood back into the extremities before thawing. If thawing precedes the return of blood, tissue will starve for oxygen and die... </em><br/>"An enclosed space, out of the wind, so her body heat will return." Valentine was a willful woman. Rychlik had already demonstrated a mind of her own. A contest was entered, Valentine tugging to convince the base animal to bring her cargo off the road, out of the open. "Come."<br/><em>...adapted to much colder climate, with an optimal region colder by 20 degrees along both extremes...</em><br/>"Let us get her to a bath just above room temperature. Not too warm. Daumantas, who will have a big tub?"<br/><br/>Valentine's nervous fidgets disappeared, swallowed whole by the mystery making use of her whole brain. The entire mind, grown in too small a cage and inventing its own problems and insecurities for exercise, bristled with vibrant, crackling sense of purpose. Her eyes were bright, her face ten years younger. "There is a tree. The males produce cones, but the leaves are fan-shaped and crenate, like clovers." She pulled to lead Rychlik equally briskly, but a horse could not be reasoned with. Stupid horse. "The root will help her."