Al smiled and nodded--he was quite used to that reaction, even from people in his world. "It really is useful, in a whole lot of ways. Brother's always been more the scholarly type about it, but I'd like to study medicinal alchemy at some point."

"The mass needs to be equivalent, yeah. It doesn't all need to be one piece, though, so if you yank off a couple locker doors or something like that, I can fuse them together." He frowns a moment, making a few mental calculations. "Don't worry too much if the metals you get are of different types, or if there's rust or something on it. It'd be easier if it were all one type, but it's such a small difference it's not too big of a deal."

He watched Lloyd flex his hand, frowning a little when he mentioned the crest. Was this what had been bothering him when he first sat down? "Sort of. What were they, anyway? I don't remember if you explained that or not."