Mention "arsenic" and the first thing that comes to most people's minds is some sort of medieval poison. That's all thanks to arsenic trioxide and the many other compounds it forms, which throughout the ages have been fed to unsuspecting husbands in their soup. After a few weeks of this condiment they would wake up one day to a lethal bout of vomiting and diarrhea.... all the easier to pass off as food poisoning! Regular elemental arsenic is much less notorious. Sometimes it's found in its native state but is typically sold as amorphous gray or black powder.

Getting shiny arsenic is much more difficult because the element promptly oxidizes in open air. To keep it shiny we must deprive it of every last trace of oxygen. This is accomplished by first putting this arsenic in a big fishtank-like glass box that is filled with a noble gas which will not chemically react with it. With sample inside, each glass ampule is then sealed inside this controlled atmosphere and shipped from the laboratory to the caster who turns it into a proper nerd’s trophy!