video; un: fullmetal alchemist

[fullmeddle]

[Blond fifteen-year-old boy sitting at the kitchen table of one of the standard apartments, dressed in a black shirt and a strikingly red jacket. There's a glass of water in front of his white-gloved hands.]

Edward Elric, state alchemist. I know this place has those bots to fix everything up after... what happened... but I'm offering my help, too, if anyone wants it. I'm skilled at transmutation, and I can fix something little, like this -

[He intentionally smashes the glass of water in front of him. It ends up in big, jagged pieces, water splashed over the tabletop. Since he planned this, it barely takes him any time at all to afix the array he needs in his mind, clap his hands together, and place his palms firmly on the table. With a flash of blue electric light, the glass becomes whole again, complete with the water in it again. He raises it to his lips and takes a sip from it, showing off that even the water's okay to drink again.]

- or something bigger, like a building. I'm not asking for much of anything in exchange - there's still stuff I want to learn about here, if anyone has time for questions.

And I'm looking for a mechanic, too. Someone who could work on prosthetic limbs. [He's not sure he wants to announce why he needs that on an open network right now, though a decent handful of people already know since they saw him without his prosthetics during the whole horror mess they just got through.]

Comments

[sleepfan]

Anything can be quantified. But you are correct: Treating life as though it is matter is inadvisable, and there are limits. Some harms cannot be undone, and once a life dissipates, it is gone.

[Or at least, Linhardt and other healing mages can't feel them anymore. Edward isn't the only one with a somber look on his face; the healer is looking off in to space, clearly remembering and looking at something that isn't there. Remembering all the times he's seen the dancing light of a life suddenly stop, like a snuffed out candle. Remembering the times he's done such a thing.

It turns his stomach.

Shaking his head, Linhardt inhales.]

What is a philosopher's stone?

[fullmeddle]

It's a myth on my world.

[It's not a myth. But he's not about to announce what he knows about it on an open network. There's a reason Dr. Marcoh encoded the information so heavily.]

Alchemy works under the principle of equivalent exchange - anything that you make has to come from something. With a philosopher's stone, you would be able to ignore that principle.