[Maes hums thoughtfully. He then looks around, but not seeing what he would like, squats down instead and starts tracing out a circle in the sand. He draws a triangle in the middle, keeping it a fairly basic shape.]
I don’t know much about how it works exactly, I just was friends with some alchemists not one myself. It’s a type of science that can do amazing things. The basics are that if you draw a Transmutation circle -- sort of like this -- and have the right knowledge you can change matter from one state into another. Different circles cause different effects and usually the more complicated the circle, the more complicated the alchemy you can perform.
[He straightens up again.]
Anyway, there was an incident at a local lab that we thought was abandoned but was actually being used for secret research into making a Philosopher’s Stone using human lives. The Elrics stumbled upon it of course and the boys asked me and Major Armstrong to investigate what we could about the Fifth Lab or a figure known to work there, Tim Marcoh. We were given orders, however, not to pursue it further.
The Elrics went elsewhere, but I made an observation by chance when I was looking at a map of our country. I did more digging and found that our country had been shaped and formed into one giant transmutation circle and that at each point there had been a major military conflict...a lot of blood shed...in the spots that would be necessary to activate it. The entire military was being manipulated to take human lives for a country-wide human transmutation circle...a circle that would be used to create a very large Philosopher’s Stone using all of the lives within it.
[Of course, some of this had been further confirmed for him when he’d woken up in the Circle and found Roy and Riza -- or at least the Promised Day information about what that actually looked like and what it meant in more detail. But it was Maes that had put it all together first. It still chills him to think about.]
no subject
I don’t know much about how it works exactly, I just was friends with some alchemists not one myself. It’s a type of science that can do amazing things. The basics are that if you draw a Transmutation circle -- sort of like this -- and have the right knowledge you can change matter from one state into another. Different circles cause different effects and usually the more complicated the circle, the more complicated the alchemy you can perform.
[He straightens up again.]
Anyway, there was an incident at a local lab that we thought was abandoned but was actually being used for secret research into making a Philosopher’s Stone using human lives. The Elrics stumbled upon it of course and the boys asked me and Major Armstrong to investigate what we could about the Fifth Lab or a figure known to work there, Tim Marcoh. We were given orders, however, not to pursue it further.
The Elrics went elsewhere, but I made an observation by chance when I was looking at a map of our country. I did more digging and found that our country had been shaped and formed into one giant transmutation circle and that at each point there had been a major military conflict...a lot of blood shed...in the spots that would be necessary to activate it. The entire military was being manipulated to take human lives for a country-wide human transmutation circle...a circle that would be used to create a very large Philosopher’s Stone using all of the lives within it.
[Of course, some of this had been further confirmed for him when he’d woken up in the Circle and found Roy and Riza -- or at least the Promised Day information about what that actually looked like and what it meant in more detail. But it was Maes that had put it all together first. It still chills him to think about.]