--- Kat ---

The group split up once they’d finished going over the details... some of them anyway. Apparently Steel still had some specifics to go over regarding who exactly was on the team, complete with pictures for everyone just in case someone was trying to sneak in with an illusion. That way Kat could catch them this time if they showed themselves.

Hedera, Furen and Tanisha had gone off to discuss what they wanted to do. Apparently they’d started to become friends... or maybe it was more than Hedera and Tanisha had become friends, while Tanisha and Furen already were? Or close enough not to matter. Kat could hear them discussing what they wanted to do, what the risks were, how they were feeling about these various choices.

Appoline and Kat were outside once again working on potions, or at least, Appoline would claim it was work. Kat was pretty sure Appoline was just enjoying messing around with demonic energy as an ingredient adjacent thing for her potions. It was something new and fascinating for the alchemist and Appoline was keen to make use of that time... but that didn’t mean she had nothing to offer either.

"Alright so, while we’re doing this I can go over the things I’ve noticed cataloguing the various Troll’s Bane poisons I could think of. The first, is of course, the epitomise Troll’s Bane itself! As well as a few derivatives. They all-" began Appoline.

"Wait hang on. I know this is going to be important... but we have time and I also really want to know... why is it called Troll’s Bane? I thought Troll’s Bane was the category name?" asked Kat.

"Ah, yes well... I’ve not studied the full history myself but I can give you my best guess. You see, healing potions are just ’healing potions’ regardless of ingredients as long as they have the same general effects. Ther are countless ways to make them because regeneration and vitality are extremely common in plants and you can force that out of them without too much trouble. Even common grass can regrow from many things that would devastate others.

"Now, because of this if you want to talk about specific recipes, you usually say the key ingredient, or main location from which it is sourced. Now the issue with Troll’s Bane is that compared to healing potions, it’s relatively new. They got popular because of the hu-" Appoline paused. "Some ruler or other I believe," *She was about to say the human king wasn’t she?* "famous for their regeneration. It meant that people knew how strong such things were and alchemists worked on counters.

"Now it’s silly to think they’d have worked against him, but it made the relatively obscure ’Troll’s Bane’ potion into something that was suddenly a category all on its own as people started to confuse the specific potion with all the various others that were meant to target regenerators.

"Now we’re at the point where one of them probably should get renamed, but most of the time the specifics don’t matter too much, and all the people that would care about the distinction know it exists and know to ask about it..." Appoline paused for a few seconds. "Allegedly."

"Right, allegedly," agreed Kat with a wink.

Appoline gave her a slight glare before nodding. "Yes totally, purely, speculation based on things I’ve read. Here. In this city. That I’ve lived in my whole life." Appoline was about to turn back to the potion when she hissed and leapt back. Kat glanced down and saw that a vine had wrapped around Appoline’s ankle.

It snapped easily when she jumped back, and when Appoline reached down to pull it off revealed there were a few barbs on it. Nothing that pierced skin... almost... deliberately blunted. Oh. "Right, let’s go back to the potions themselves," commented Kat.

Appoline glared at the grass for a bit as if looking for a response before nodding. "Yes, that’s a thing I can do. Anyway, Troll’s Bane. The original version and the ones based on it are all about eating flesh to create more of itself. For all that the original is widely feared, it actually isn’t all that effective."

Kat raised a clearly questioning eyebrow. Appoline didn’t even need to look back to explain. "The way it works, is to somewhat convince the regeneration that it’s not a problem, the fact that you’re missing a large patch of your skin is. It sort of... infiltrates the muscles, spreading through them and then eating the skin and making more of itself. It’s sort of two poisons in one.

"The flesh eating part, and the muscle infiltration part. Once it can no longer spread... then it just sort of necrotises the muscles in a less then a second. Now in practice this sounds really scary but there are a lot of flaws. Regenerators that can think know to fix the muscles first, plenty of default regeneration is also good enough to recognise the danger posed and it really is only effective on trolls. They have such endless regeneration that their priorities are all wrong for staying alive.

"Anyway, this stuff is unlikely to be able to hurt you much, and while it sounds similar I suspect it’s not what was used. It also just can’t really work above Ranks all that well. There’s a reason this wasn’t a popular poison and why nobody is really pushing to have it renamed. It truly is a Troll’s Bane and it’s far too late to rename the category. It’d just confused people.

"So my word of warning for the ’traditional stuff’ is to not worry about it, or if it’s actually a problem, focus your regeneration on your muscles. Though..."Appoline glanced at Kat’s skin. "Really not sure it even CAN eat your skin, cause whatever it is you call skin? It ain’t standard."

Kat nodded slowly. "Um... why doesn’t that stuff work on normal people?"

"It burns a hole in the skin and runs out of energy too quickly, failing to make the muscle infiltration part. Trolls regenerate the skin so quickly it gets to eat a bunch before it gets to the muscles. For normal people its closer to an acid but they’re expensive so it’s a big waste to use them that way," explained Appoline.

*Sounds like a potential worry for Lily still... but you could also just use acid which I’d guess works better if it’s of equivalent strength. So... keep it in mind but not be too worried I suppose?*

"The next category are ones I’ll call ’burners’ which, despite the name, are also not necessarily what was causing you issues. It’s hard to say with the Rank difference... but anyway on to what they do. They’re a version of Troll’s Bane that focus on essentially ’burning’ the edges of the wound. They don’t make it bigger, but the absolutely wreck the edges of it causing a sort of standstill in the regeneration progress.

"Most regenerators can’t really push out foreign objects..." Appoline glanced at Kat. "I know you can, but that’s not particularly normal. In plenty of regenerators, trolls included... sort of... this burning creates an issue. The regeneration can’t heal ’through’ it, and instead needs to heal ’around’ it... but the poison is still there so it can burn more skin as it grows over...

"It creates are rather disgusting lumps of flesh and artificially scarred tissue and the one you deal with it is by simply cutting it away. Though funnily enough, Trolls have a way to deal with it. They simply grow skin over... and then reabsorb the dead stuff? Sort of? I’m not expert in Troll biology but they can deal with it all after closing he wound instead of leaving it exposed to more damage, or closing it up and causing other issues later down the line."

Kat nodded, and had no further questions about them either. "The next one is ’infiltrators’ and might be what you’re dealing with. Perhaps your regeneration can detect them... perhaps not. It’s not the last category so..." Appoline shrugged. "Anyway, what these poisons do is slip in during the regeneration progress and disguise themselves as part of the regenerator.

"Once the wound is healed, the poison just... sits there for a while until it breaks down into a different poison with whatever effect you want. Some people go for the kill, others paralysis. Usually if done properly, and with the correct dosage, the regenerator still gets hurt because the new poison came from their body and is considered ’not foreign’ and thus, not worked on... but for sentient targets you need them to be asleep. Any sort of focused regeneration can obviously deal with it afterwards, or just ripping it out."

Kat nodded along. "I suspect the next one is the last?"

"It’s the last broad category yes," agreed Appoline. "It’s also the most expensive and hardest to acquire and store. There are some miscellaneous stuff... anyway. I call these ’Bomb Warnings’. The idea is that the poison infiltrates the body... and essentially threatens it. Saying ’if you get rid of me I’ll be a lot worse’. The idea is that the poison creates some sort of negative effect, with a threat of a much larger one if it’s healed at all."

"That... seems hard to make and harder to manage. How does it work?" asked Kat.