This was all very tense wasn't it? Or... was it? Abey didn't know if it was supposed to be, but he knew that HE watched with bated breath as the Healer Man went ahead and stuck his hand in the tank with the murtlap. Were they vicious creatures? WOULD IT ATTACK? ... The answer was likely no, given that they were letting school aged people work with them. BUT EVEN SO! This could all be a daring and amazing adventure actually! Maybe. Sort of.

Abey let go of his held breath once everything seemed to be okay, except... well, now he had to do the part that... didn't seem very pleasant at all. He hesitated, looking from the Healer to the creature in the box, and then around at everyone else. There had been no screams of pain from the murtlaps in the room so far, which meant that obviously this wasn't going to hurt them, as long as he did it right. But even sooooooo... it was kind of icky, cutting the LIVING tentacles off of a LIVING thing... thought actually he wouldn't have liked to deal with a dead murtlap so actually he would cope actually.

Maybe if he thought of it like he was just cutting its hair? Even though those wriggly bits definitely obviously actually weren't hair at all at all at all. But what if he got it wrong and accidentally hurt it? TENSE.

But Abey knew he couldn't wait for long because then there would be no shrimps left in the tank for the murtlap to be distracted by. He nodded, and picked up his scissors. "Okaaaaaay..." If you're SURE, sir.

Reaching in the tank - tentatively at first, just to make sure the murtlap was still okay with, uhhh... visitors - Abey caaaaarefully took hold of that one specific tentacle felt around the stub of it. He held his scissors ready.

"I don't want to hurt it." Even by accident. That would be awful actually.

When he did finally cut off the tentacle right around where he'd been told to, Abey did so with his face screwed up in anticipation of something DREADFUL happening... but everything was okay. Maybe. He couldn't actually be sure if the murtlap had even noticed; it didn't SEEM to have reacted at all.

Looking back to the Healer, Abey held up the tentacle for him to see, keeping his nose kinda scrunched up because ewwww it was weird. "Got one."

Leon placed the chemicals in front of him and carefully poured out one half cup of Sal Ammoniac into the jar, he put the lid on that and put it to the side. He then cleaned his measuring cup with scourgify and then poured the Sulfur Vive into it.

He carefully tipped the measuring cup into the jar, making sure all the contents got safely into the jar before cleaning the measuring cup one final time and setting that to the side with all his other cleaned equipment.

Now he measured out 450 ml of Spirit Vinegar and grasped his mason jar with one hand. He tilted the jar a little and then slowly started to pour the Vinegar into the jar, taking care to make sure there were no bubbles..

It was rather a slow and lengthy process, as the seventh year poured as slow as was humanly possible and he had the jar tipped so much the liquid in the jar was practically touching the liquid he was pouring in!

Finally though, he got it all poured in with no bubbles and he sighed and wiped his forehead a little with the back of his arm..

Phew! That had been an experience!

Etta waited as the excess water drained, feeling a little bored and impatient already. But before too long, she could see water collecting in the jar. Perfect. Now, she could proceed to the next step in the procedure. Hoping she didn't spill any of it in the process, she slowly poured the drained water into another cup.

She looked up to read the procedure once again before adding the necessary quantity of Sal Ammoniac and Sulfur Vive into the jar using the measuring cup. Easy. Now as for the other ingredient, she carefully tilted the jar to the side before pouring the Spirit Vinegar very, very slowly. Might as well do everything properly, right? Because there was no way she was repeating the entire activity all over again. NOPE.

After what felt like forever, she'd finally finished adding the vinegar. And with no bubbles too. Awesome. She looked visibly relieved, glad that this seemed to be going well.. with no problems, so far. Phew.

The harvesting was done. The Murtlap had more shrimp to eat and the lid of the box was now closed once more. Now for the pickling. It sounded pretty straight forward and Daisy was already unscrewing the lid off of her mason jar when she looked up at the instructions Healer Reed had revealed on the blackboard. Golly. That was a lot of stuff to do. A lot of ingredients, too! The fifth year's shoulders slumped just a bit and she jokingly glared at the staff member. She had trusted him! He had tricked her with his fun seminar into attending his not-so-fun-actually-a-lot-of-work seminar. STILL, she wasn't really one to give up and she was looking forward to telling her Healer!Mum that she too was experienced in the arts of Healing.

Sort of.

The first instruction was easy enough and Daisy grabbed the handful of tentacles she had harvested and dropped it into the mason jar. Wait -- what came next? The girl looked up at the blackboard once more and mentally chastised herself. Salt. How had she forgotten that? She measured the necessary quantity in the measuring cup that had been provided and then poured it over the tentacles. Gentleness was really not her strongest suit.

As she waited for the excess water to appear, she occupied herself with writing down the instructions on her parchment. Healer Reed had asked them to bring note-taking equipment and this probably counted as note-worthy, right? They didn't exactly have to study for this -- and don't go getting any ideas, Mr. Reed -- but it was probably a good idea to save this.

Oh, and look! Water was collecting at the bottom of the jar.

Levi couldn't say he knew if the murtlap's tentacles were just there for aesthetics or for another reason entirely but it was comforting to know they'd grow back. And it also told him why not touching the stubs was important. Because of this, the boy didn't feel too bad about having to take more tentacles.

Because he already had practice, it was fairly. Or, well, it eventually became easier. He did sprang back once, startled once more by the murtlap's sudden movement, and another time chastised the creature by wagging his index finger and hissing, "Don't be so rude."

A handful of shrimp later, Levi managed to cut the remaining six. It took longer than he'd anticipated, and the murtlap's baldness was significantly more noticeable now, but...there was no need to think of that.

Once more, he pushed his goggles up to his forehead, put on his reading glasses and checked the instructions.

All right, so now was just the water and then sealing and labeling the jars..

Seems easy enough. He took the distilled water from his supplied and unscrewed the cap and gently poured the liquid into the jar. His grey eyes glanced quickly upwards to double check exactly how much water he needed. Ahh, just up to the the neck of the jar.

He leaned down as he poured so he could see exactly where the water level was.

Anddddd done!

Leon put the bottle of water down, screwed the top on and put it in his supplies..

Now.. that looked good! Great! He was done! Well almost!

He put the metal lid on and then affixed the band in it and screwed it on tightly.

He picked the jar up by the mouth to check on the seal and nodded, it felt good! Soo he picked up a label, and wrote on it..

Quote:

Leon Kennedy
7th year
Ravenclaw

There! Label done he put his finished jar on the desk and leaned back..

He was done!

Etta was glad this was almost over. It had been rather.. weird and she didn't see how this seminar was going to help her in the future? Unless you studied healing or something to do with magical creatures.

ANYWAY. Now, what? To top the solution with water.. got it. She picked up the cup of water that had been drained earlier and with the utmost care, poured it into the solution. And the girl continued to pour until the water was filled to the brim. A few drops more and the jar would have overflowed.. oops. The girl screwed the top on aaaand done! She only had to take care of the labelling now.

A frown settled on his brow as he worked on arranging the tentacles one by one on his mason jar. Though his wand work was fine enough and was unlikely to cause any accidents, Levi was pleased that they'd have to use just their hands instead. He did not want to risk flicking his wand just a little to roughly to one side and ruin what he'd been working on.

Levi went to retrieve the sea salt and lowered himself down until the measure cup was directly in front of his eyes. Once he was sure it was exactly half of a cup, the boy poured it on the tentacles inside the mason jar and waited. For...what, again? Levi sighed, annoyed, as he removed his goggles a little roughly and put on his reading glasses, again.

Oh, water release, right. Excess of it, anyway.

After making sure the band was screwed in, Etta picked the jar up by it's mouth and made sure that the lid was fastened properly. She didn't want to take any chances. Just to be sure, she did double-check it once again before she was satisfied. It did look alright. She set the jar down and pulled off her gloves, heaving a small sigh of relief. She took off her goggles too.

Now, she only had to do the labelling. The girl pulled a label towards her and carefully wrote in her best handwriting :

Quote:

Henrietta Kramer
Fourth year
Hufflepuff (:

-- And added a 'smiley face' for effect too. Yeah, her label looked neat and pretty.

Jordan obviously taught his students well, considering that Abey wasn't the first student to express their concern about hurting the Murtlap while harvesting. it showed kindness and curiosity at the same time. "Their nerve endings stop at the stubs. Beyond that are just tentacles without any trace of dendrites so they won't feel anything. If they did, however, not only will they be in excruciating pain, but harvesting their tentacles would be close to impossible." And in the wizarding world, their tentacles were meant for harvesting...and for healing and protection purposes of the wizarding folks.

River gave Abey all the time he needed to harvest his first tentacle, given that it was a bit daunting to execute. Live rodent and all. The Healer kept his pleasant grin as he waited for the Gryffindor, and nodded in approval as soon as the boy showed him his first ever harvest. "Well done, Master Botros. It wasn't that hard, was it?" River adjusted his grip on the Murtlap and allowed Abey to choose his next tentacle. "Four more to go, and we'll be ready to pickle the tentacles." Keep up the good work, Abester!

Etta labelled the jar..... and the activity was done. Now, what? Where were they to keep it now? Could they just leave or did they have to wait? But the activity was over right? Ugh, confusion. The girl tidied her desk, made sure everything was clean and packed her bag. Until then... what to doooo? She was bored already.

Ohhhhh, wait. The girl pulled out her parchment and quill, deciding to draw. She had to wait for further instructions anyway so might as well use the time, right?

"Oh, okay," Abey replied, nodding his head, even though he had no idea what a nerve ending was or what that had to do with anything. Dendrites? Not a clue. But he DID know what 'excruciating' meant, so... one out of three? "That makes sense." It did not make sense, but Abey was rather good at pretending, you see. It was like ACTING and definitely not lying.

Anyways, at least he knew what he was doing now, and actually now that he'd already done one of the tentacle cutting things, he felt a little more like he could do the rest. AND, even though he hadn't understood some of those words the Healer had said, he DID sort of work out that what it must have meant was that the murtlaps just couldn't feel the tentacles after a certain point which made it okay to cut them off.

"No, not hard at all actually," Abey said with a grin. Okay, yes, he was ready now, and also now he should probably speed up because everyone else was way ahead of him. He didn't seem to be in trouble from being so far behind, but still.

After looking over all the murtlap's tentacles and locating the one that looked most like the one that the Healer had picked out earlier, Abey reached into the tank with loads more confidence than the last time. Feeling for the base of the tentacle - the stub, yes that - he made sure to cut a couple of centimetres away from it, now with the (sort of) understanding that he couldn't possibly be hurting it.

Abey wanted to be speedy, but he didn't want to RUSH, but he wanted to be speedy, but he DIDN'T WANT TO RUSH. Trying to rush his work when his work included scissors near a live animal and a task he had only just learnt to do was probably actually sort of definitely a bad idea. But he did work more efficiently now, putting the second harvested tentacle into the tray with the first, and then going back to locate a suitable third, fourth and fifth choice, and making short BUT CAREFUL work of collecting those too. Every time he finished one, he checked the shrimp status in the tank too, at one point even added another shrimp or two to the box with having to be asked.

And now he had five harvested tentacles! Or, no, wait... Abey paused, and did another count, this time pointing at each as he counted them off, just to be sure, because it HAD looked like four, but no, all five were there! Yesssssss!

Oh, and because manners were very important, Abey leaned forward and whispered into the tank, "Thank you Mr. Murtlap." He knew it probably didn't understand him, but it was important to say please and thank you actually.

Done!

The water level seemed to have stabilised, now, and Daisy was pretty sure that the tentacles held no more excess liquid. Well, she hoped they didn't but even if they did, it was useless because OOPS, there went the water, back into the cauldron. She made sure it was all properly drained; even if they were adding water later on, maybe not draining properly at this stage in the process would affect the quality of the pickling.

And she couldn't have that.

Now to add the proper pickling stuff.

She adjusted the goggles around her head and read the instructions once more. Right, those were very precise quantities, weren't they? The Slytherin pulled the mason jar with the tentacles closer to the edge of the workstation, and therefore closer to her, and got her measuring cup. Half a cup of Sal Ammoniac was measured then added to the jar, nose wrinkling at the smell; another half a cup, this time of Sulfer Vive, was poured from the measuring cup into the mason jar. The spirit vinegar was very carefully added into a titled mason jar, even if Daisy didn't particularly wanted to do it like that. Look, if she was forced to handle and SMELL vinegar, she should be allowed to make bubbles.

Apparently, it was bad for the pickling, though so ... SIGH. Some sacrifices had to be made, apparently.

She scourgified the measuring cup, then, because the instructions said to add water to the solution. Water mixed with the rest of the stuff she had measured there probably wasn't what Healer Reed had in mind. Soon enough, the water reached the top of the jar and Daisy quickly screwed it shut, tightly. ALL DONE!! The seal seemed pretty tight, its hold on the jar strong so the fifteen-year-old reached for the labels. There, she wrote with her self-inking quill...

Quote:

Daisy E. Carden
Fifth Year
Slytherin

... and placed her jar proudly on the middle of her workstation.

WOOOHOOO. Strained, Harvested, Pickled ...TENTACLES!!

Though he rarely backed down from challenges, he was afraid of ruining all his hard work with his clumsy, untrained hands by adding extra ingredients to the murtlap essence. And so the Gryffindor boy chose to forego the sal ammoniac and the sulfure vive.

After adjusting the goggles back on, Levi continued to keep a close eye on the essence and when it looked like all the excess of water had come out, he poured it in the cauldron. When he was done, the boy used scourgify to clean the measure cup and used it to add the right amount of vinegar. Then he topped the solution with the distilled water, and proceeded to close the lid shut as tightly as he could.

Quote:

Levi O. Kenning
5th year Gryffindor

He removed the goggles and placed them on the table. Levi took the mason jar and tilted it upside down, testing to see if any solution tried to sneak out. None did but he did notice some bubbles. Three of them, to be more precise. He frowned, raising his head. "Is there a way to get rid off the bubbles, sir?"

Char harvested two more tentacles, trying to spread the harvest sites out so that less baldness was happening, and then she put them aside, and just in time too since they were moving on. Char was pleased to be moving on, she got bored too easily otherwise. Nooooot that she though the next part sounded all that exciting. She carefully restored the lid to the murtlap's glass box, and looked up at the instructions on the board. Big sigh over here. This was just like potions except at least the potions they got to make did cool things sometimes. Not even any cool spells in this one either. Oh well. Char looked at the clock and took a deep breath. Almost over and then she could go stretch her legs and maybe talk to her bestie about certain things.

Did they have to write this stuff down? Ohhh please noooo. Too much tedious stuff would mean her mind would wander in a big way. But he didn't say they had to so that was good. She skimmed the instructions a couple times, gaze catching at the bit about kitchen grade version. Why would anyone want a less potent version? Char didn't get that bit. If it was her she'd just want the really strong one in case of emergencies.

Charlotte emptied the harvested five tentacles into her new clean jar and peered at them. Seemed like an awful lot of jar for not much tentacle. Would he combine them later on? Before she started on the actual steps and whatnot, Char decided to measure out all her ingredients. It was always a good thing for her to do, because she got distracted too easily sometimes, so if they were already measured out it made things easier. So it was 450 ml of Spirit Vinegar, ½ cup of sea salt, ¼ cup of Sal Ammoniac, ¼ cup of Sulfur Vive, 20 ml of Distilled Water, 10 Murtlap Tentacles--- wait. She only had five tentacles. Did that mean she needed to halve the rest of the ingredients? Charlotte thought about it and decided that was the thing to do, because she didn't want to hurry and try and harvest more and make mistakes or run out of time.

So back to measuring. Half. 225mls of spirit vinegar. Which was apparently what people called it. She thought everyone called it white vinegar but then Char didn't know much about kitchen things, honestly. 1/4 cup measured of the sea salt..... 1/8 cup of... Sal Ammoniac, and 1/8 cup of Sulfur Vive. For these Char was glad of the goggles. They seemed... fume-y. 10 mls of Distilled water, and then she arranged all the measured things around her workspace. Okay. Ready to go!

She added her sea salt, the 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup of sea salt for her half amount of tentacles, and then peered into the jar again. You could see the salt drying them out. Kind of horrifying because it made Char think about her precious snail friends and.... well. Murder most foul. But the excess water came out soon enough, and Char drained it out.... uhh. Wait. Cauldron? She was making stuff in the jar though right? Right. Maybe it was just how the instructions were. But now onto the second step. 1/8 cup of Sal Ammoniac, 1/8 cup of Sulfur Vive. Those first. And then more carefully, the 225mls of vinegar. Char picked the jar up and very carefully tipped it to one side. Mostly there were no bubbles. Mostly. A fewww bubbles, but pretty good for her first (and probably only ever) try.

Char put the jar back down and then added the water in on top. Oh. But it didn't reach all the way to the top. Did her jar need to be smaller then? Or.... did she just add more water? Charlotte decided not to mess with the water amounts, but she could shrink the jar without any ill-effects. That was right up her alley. She took her wand out of its holster and quickly did that in slow increments until the size ratio matched the volume. The lid and ring too. That was better! Hopefully the healer wouldn't mind what she'd done, it seemed necessary, otherwise the ratios would be different to the instructions right? Maybe? Oh well! Who knew. Perhaps she was completely wrong all together. Didn't matter though because at least she was almost done. And maybe he'd at least see her logic trying to figure out what to do.

Now how did this lid and screw on ring thing even work? Char eyed the pieces speculatively. This wasn't something she'd come across. She looked around the room to figure that out and then placed the lid on top of the jar before screwing the ring on as tightly as she could. LITTLE TIGHTER. She made a face as she put some elbow grease into it. But that was as tight as it would go so now it was time to see if the seal had worked. She held the edge of it, the mouth bit and it seemed okay to her. Nothing felt loose or was falling off or anything.

Last thing was to label. Char labeled it 'murtlap essence, half volume', added her name, and then in small writing, an explanation as to why she'd halved the ingredients. At least if she was wrong, hopefully she wouldn't be marked down because she'd tried to figure it out.

.... hopefully they'd be back to yeti next time. Charlotte cleaned off and packed away the equipment, yawned and stripped her gloves off.

Freedom couldn't come soon enough.

River quietly watched the youngest Botros child do his job, and was quite pleased with the trust that the kid has placed on him. See, the murtlap didn't even mind their presence as it happily chewed on its treats. Were those...two shrimp tails in its mouth now? "Poor chap must be hungry too." River replied as the man gently dumped the rest of the shrimps inside its tank, and gently placed the lid back as soon as Abey was done harvesting his tentacles. "Well done Master Botros. And you harvested good tentacles too, I must say," he said inspecting the squishy murtlap parts in his collection tray.

The Healer man quickly summoned a parchment and his muggle pen from his pocket and took the liberty of labelling each of the ingredients that were now in front of the boy. "Now, Master Botros...you are ready to pickle your tentacles. The first thing that must be done is to put the harvested tentacles inside the jar and add the salt. Wait for the excess water to appear and drain it in your cauldron." River instructed the boy as detailed and slowly as he can so as not to confuse him. He also gestured his finger towards the ingredients and tentacles to make the instruction visual. It was...sort of a test as well, so River could make his initial diagnosis. Was Abey dyslexic? Will pictures and signs be more manageable for him? "Don't worry about which ingredient to put next, just follow the labels here," he said gesturing to his last minute labelling for Abey, "And then cap the jar with the lid and ring." he continued showing the metal objects.



OOC: Last 40 minutes to get your replies in!
I wasn't able to get online earlier because I'm sick with high fever. So sorry again for the very late announcement! ><

...


As soon as Abey was finished with his task, River turned and made a quick inspection on the others, and clapped his hands to get their attention. "I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Please leave your jars in here as I will check them one by one. You may, however, take your essences with you. Should come in handy. Thank you for coming, and enjoy the rest of your day." he said, tucking his hands behind him and smiled at the students who met his eyes.

As the students turned and headed out the door, River can't help but grin to himself...in a mischievous manner. He's known to prank his Castelobruxo students, so he thought that putting a very mild laughing jinx at the threshold will do for now. Those who were brave enough to eat the pickled Murtlap tentacles was obviously spared, the rest...well, they were bound to laugh and giggle in the next 15 minutes. Oops? Hehehehe.

The door to the classroom was closed and locked as soon as the last student showed himself out.


OOC: Thank you, everyone, for coming! If you're up for it, you may react/RP your characters giggling and laughing uncontrollably for the next 15 minutes if they haven't taken the pickled Murtlap tentacle. Check out your house points table for your incentive points. See you around! ^^