<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/19/59/d5/1959d5a89df588d70e329492b8e6ff84.jpg)</div><strong>Location:</strong>Introduction to Arcane Theory<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Students<br/><br/>The jock gave Liam a nod.  "I do miss before I made the team and started getting regular testing."<br/><br/>Once more the goth spoke up, curious.  "Wouldn't the bull's bollocks be the most desired?"<br/><br/>Professor Merryweather smiled.  "Once you pick the organ, you have access to a full range of animals.  Male virility is arguably best handled by the bush cricket."  The teacher then got more serious.  "And if you go that route, make certain that you and your partner both have plenty of hydration, before and on hand, as if you were running a marathon.  Hospitalization due to dehydration isn't untreatable, but it's easy to ignore the symptoms without a level head."<br/><br/>Once more the student turned a fainter shade of pink as she made notes to research the bush cricket.<br/><br/>With reagents handled for now, Professor Merryweather tapped the next part, "Solvent and kettle.  I'll teach these together.  Now, you've heard that water is the universal solvent, and you've heard of tea kettles and cauldrons.  If you're using a cauldron full of water, those are your solvent and kettle.  Those are by far the most common, but not strictly necessary.  A few showoffs maintain the water in a suspended state, and some have found some alchemical processes work better with alcohol, oil, or another acid instead of water.  Simply remember the terms."<br/><br/>After giving people a bit of time to write, she continued, "The incantation are the magical spells that make it work.  Unlike in movies, recordings don't work: the voice is the human mind putting action into thought in creating sound representing concepts and the willpower behind them, the belief and the power to see them through.  Rhyming and alliteration, depending upon the language, are exceptionally common methods to put power to the words, to give them meaning that stirs the soul even if they must be repeatedly chanted to make the spell work.  Plenty of books exist with workable versions, but I prefer to teach the methods of creating an incantation."<br/><br/>She laid out the problems.  "On that note, this isn't a poetry class.  Some students just work better with the prewritten, and if you find yourself lacking in confidence in your own words, those can often work better for you.  It's also important not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good: few spells require the tenacious precision of a sniper's bullet or a programmer's code.  Especially for earlier spells, it's more important for flight spells to get you into the air rather than expecting to calculate a direct trajectory to the moon."  Growing more serious, she finished, "The true importance is that your will is stated in the incantation and that it does not falter as you speak the words."<br/><br/>Again giving time for others to write, she concluded, "And Receptacle is what you intend to keep the alchemical concoction in between the kettle and the ingestion of the target.  Very few spells necessitate drinking directly from the cauldron, after all, and some potions can be mixed in other liquids.  Questions so far?"