An Alchemist's Skooma Treatment

An Alchemist's Skooma Treatment

By Jeannot of Ambelle

The infamous narcotic known as skooma needs no lengthy introduction, for all know it as a spectre that haunts the slums of every city; one is equally likely to find a prince or pauper partaking in the damnable concoction. Few stop to consider the suffering such a drug wracks on the mind and body and fewer still consider the physiological mechanisms of such alchemy.

What tinctures may cause, tinctures may also solve, for all are merely substances consumed that the body digests and processes. Many assert that skooma addiction cannot be cured, nor can its negative properties be treated in any effective manner, but I believe this is a baseless assumption.

To understand skooma, we must look to its precursor, moon sugar. In Elsweyr, the cane is grown in the shore-waters of the Topal Bay and enjoyed as a regular sweetener in khajiiti dishes, rather than a narcotic.

To non-khajiit, a pastry in Torval might afflict one with a stimulating high, while the cats themselves enjoy the sugar as men enjoy spices. Khajiit form no addiction to moon sugar when prepared correctly.

Skooma, however, is not moon sugar. It is a caramel melted down with obscure reagents to keep it at a shelf-stable liquid form. It then becomes a stimulant unparalleled, apocrypha telling of it originating on the battlefield for its increase of speed and strength on the body, turning one akin to a rabid animal.

As opposed to moon sugar, khajiit routinely become addicted to skooma with the same frequency as other races, save for one unique side effect of habitual usage - routine indigestion.

This, in fact, is the secret to the cat-folk's moon sugar tolerance, and the key to treatment.

I have attempted treatment of several addicts which have found their way in the Empire's prisons. While many of my attempts have failed, my breakthrough came with the cooperation of one khajiiti woman who volunteered, in hopes I may purge her affliction. It was through her I was told of the Khajiiti culinary tradition, and their moderation in such sweets. It was her that led to my breakthrough.

Several anatomical treatises show that there is an energy and nourishing material within all food; this material is absorbed by the stomach and other digestive organs when we eat. Solid foods take longer to absorb within the flesh of our insides, while liquid passes into the body more easily.

Moon Sugar, as a solid dust, takes its time in the gut, and so our bodies can prepare for it and sup from its energy over time. Skooma, however, is a liquid; a concentrated form of stimulating sugar that rushes into the body, overwhelms it, attacks the organs with its energy and throws the mind into a rush of pleasure. This begins the addiction almost immediately.

Khajiiti preference for moon sugar and its measured intake is part of their unique physiology, one which requires a balance between too much and too little sweetness, and is sensitive to an over-abundance or lack thereof.

Thus, when my subject complained of stomach pains after letting her imbibe in two bottles of the (legally acquired) narcotic, I gave her a cyrodiilic concoction, nux vomica, which not only cured her pains but ended her high almost immediately.

The clean-up was, of course, revolting, but I have never smiled harder in my life. Weeks went by where I provided my subject with skooma in measured doses along with a mixture of nux vomica, other emetics, and laxatives. Each time showed an immediate cessation of the side effects of skooma use.

While I was unable to find a true cure for the addiction, a concoction of salt, dissolved copper, goat's milk, and nux vomica caused the body to purge itself with such violence that traces of the narcotic were entirely absent from the body.

I believe that with the persistent use of purging reagents, the allure of skooma can fade from the body despite continual imbibing. My subject did not overcome her addiction, but the allure of such a substance brings more hesitation with the associations she had developed.

I can therefore safely conclude that the nature of skooma addiction, and the method of curing it, lies within the gut. I believe that with further study of these substances, we can purge addiction entirely from the body, mind, and soul.