Nathaniel 'Creepster Hermit' Porter (techmech) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-19 13:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, cian wilde, nathaniel porter |
Who: Nate & Cian
What: A first meeting
Where: Nate’s master’s workshop
When: Sometime in late 2008
Rating: PG-13 because potty mouth
Status: Complete!
It was pretty late, and Nate really should have been heading back home already if he didn’t want to have to sneak in, but the lure of figuring things out was just too strong. Master Hemlin had finished a shipment of magicite weaponry concealed as jewelry just that morning. Normally no one particularly minded the shape of a hunk of magicite, so long as it got the job done, but the particular shapes required to convincingly pass them off as gems had required a lot of delicate work. As a reward for finishing his own project early, Master Hemlin had given the discards to Nate. There were so many different kinds, Nate didn’t even know where to begin. He gathered up a handful, and sifted through the slivers. This one was Dark type, and this Frost - that one seemed like it might be Luck, and a couple of Fire too. The smaller ones were almost impossible to figure out, though - the glints of colour were too subtle against his skin. Maybe if he used Master Hemlin’s loupe… The floor of the workshop was not as even as it could be. A crack in the boards caught Nate’s foot, and he swore even as his hand went out to catch himself, a rainbow of precious magicite falling before him. No, he’d lose them, don’t - ...what? The shards had all landed in a jumble together, and Nate had landed hard on his knees, but that wasn’t what had caught his attention. It looked like a miniature colourful explosion had gone off, with bright flickers of light shining out and the impact rattling all the tools on his workbench. That was unexpected. Cian had to hand it to the old man -- he’d had his fingers in a lot of pies. And with the princess locked up in her metaphorical tower (he fought back the twinge; he’d thought he’d gotten better about that, but apparently he’d been wrong), he’d picked up the slack with almost no bloodshed. He’d made himself visible, though, in an attempt to force familiarity. The sooner the syndicate members got used to their new boss, the better for everyone. He’d tried, for about five minutes, to make himself over in the old man’s image before he’d given up. No, he’d keep his beat-up leather jacket and his scowl and his own unique brand of morals. He intended to be his own kind of leader. This guy was apparently willing to accept him at face value, but then, he didn’t seem much the type for confrontation. He’d been obsequious to a fault since Cian had walked in for the delivery (fear did that, he guessed; his reputation did tend to precede him), and the business had been conducted with a minimum of fuss. That is, until the colorful explosion in the back; he’d heard the thump and seen the flash through the open door to the back room. “Mind if I take a look?” he asked, but didn’t wait for permission, just went. Cian -- now Wilde -- didn’t intend to make a habit of asking permission of the people who worked for him, even by extension. He saw the kid -- gangly, scrawny, mid-teens, maybe, probably an apprentice -- on his knees staring at what looked like a pile of glimmering ash. He didn’t greet the boy, only said, “What was that? Never seen anything like that come out of this shop before.” The proprietor was right behind him, already making assurances about accidents and foolish apprentices. Cian raised a hand; the man closed his mouth. “Let the kid tell me,” he said. Oh, shit. Was that - yup, looked like. He’d known the customer for this shipment was pretty important, why else would Master Hemlin have been quite this relieved to have it out on time, but - Cian Wilde? Okay. Breathe. Didn’t seem like he was pissed. Sounded more curious than anything, really. So Nate sat back on his heels and thought about it. “Some interaction between the different types of magicite, I think,” he replied eventually. The ones that had gone off were reduced to powder, but some had scattered further and seemed unaffected. That had been pretty unexpected. Maybe something about them all landing on top of each other together? Without really thinking it through, Nate swept the remaining fragments into his hands, then dropped them again from a foot in the air. The workbench caught on fire. In the ensuing chaos -- Hemlin was shouting, some girl ran in with a bucket, then more shouting and dumping of water on the fire, resulting in the unpleasant smell of wet char and a severely pissed off craftsman -- Cian did nothing but stand and watch, eyes narrowed as he thought. Once the fire was out and the shouting began again, he cut the older man off with a simple, “Hold on.” He could save the lecture about dangerous things for another time, as far as Cian was concerned. Dangerous, sure, but it was… interesting. He walked over to the table to examine the ignition point, saw nothing at all left of the bits of stone. More than interesting -- maybe even useful. And hell, life was dangerous; everyone died at the end, didn’t they? “I’m guessing,” he said to the kid, “by that demonstration, you’ve got no damn clue what it’ll do.” Nate scratched at the back of his head sheepishly. Well, somehow he got the feeling that he might be needing to find a new master if he wanted to learn more about crafting with magicite. Wasn’t like admitting it would do him any more harm at this point. “Not a clue,” he confirmed. “Might be there was a larger amount of fire-type in that lot?” But that didn’t even really make sense, since the shards came from jewels that were primarily primed for more subtle spells. They’d disintegrated down into dust again. For a moment, Nate felt the pang of other, less destructive experiments he could be performing - but the slivers were all so tiny that there wasn’t much chance he’d get usable magic out of any of them, and besides, this was really cool. And there was still a fair pile of fragments to hand. “So it’s random,” he said. Well, if it wasn’t, they’d see soon enough; an idea was already forming in his head. He bent to take up a few more of the scattered fragments and closed his fist around them. They were warm to the touch. “Hm.” He didn’t think about it long, only tossed over his shoulder, “Get another bucket,” before striding through the back room as though he owned it (he didn’t exactly, but it was a near enough thing that he wasn’t bothered) until he reached the door leading into the small dirt yard behind the shop. Wooden fence, but he had some room, and unless this got a whole hell of a lot bigger than it had been -- possible, but unlikely -- his aim was pretty good. He didn’t wait to see if he had been followed, operating under the assumption that he probably had. Instead, he gently shook the fragments in his hand and threw. The explosion was indeed bigger this time -- not fire or anything he could immediately identify, but explosive all the same. Though the fragments had landed on the ground, the series of explosions seemed to cascade out of thin air. It took a few moments for the dust and smoke to clear, but the bucket turned out to be unnecessary. The dirt was scorched, but otherwise, nothing was damaged. Blinking the sparks out of his eyes, Nate stared up. Cian Wilde was so cool. Also kinda nuts. Who just exploded things like that? Well, apart from him. He was training to be a machinist, though. Accidental explosions were in the job description. Actually, they were probably the entirety of the job description… “That was awesome,” Nate said. “Why’d it do that?” Now he definitely wanted to experiment more. If there was some way of reliably guaranteeing this type of reaction, creating explosions like this from off-cuts and discards would make it far more feasible to sell as a weapon. As for Cian, his mental gears were already turning. Random meant luck would factor in, and if luck factored… Well, he still had half a deck of magicite cards, a part of his so-called inheritance from the late Tynan Wilde. The things were ridiculously expensive, but he’d figured he’d need to hit up a craftsman sooner or later. But say he could replace them with something else? The shards might be wasted on metal cards, granted, considering how much the damn things cost to make with or without magicite inlays. But cards weren’t the only available format, now were they? “Guess you’re going to find out for me, kid,” he said, then, for the first time since his arrival here, grinned. It could turn out to be nothing worthwhile. Or it could be his first stroke of genuine good luck since he’d taken the helm of the organization. “I’ve got a project for you.” Getting a custom commission from Cian Wilde himself was beyond amazing; the other apprentices spent the next week glaring daggers at him, but Nate wouldn’t have given it up for any amount of mercenary ‘friendship’ on offer. Best of all, there was no way Master Hemlin could get on his case about the explosions, since it had ended up with the closest thing they had to The Wilde’s attention. He had refused to give Nate any more scraps, but that was okay. Nate was resourceful. He managed to beg a fair few from his other master, and found more on a daring midnight raid of the dumpsters behind various other machinists’ shops. The dice themselves were pretty crude, the edges roughly soldered together with lead, and the weight probably wasn’t precisely even - then again, how could it be, since the whole point was that they contained loose parts. “And they might go off in your pocket if you move around too jerkily,” Nate explained, anxiously. “Still not completely sure what they’ll do, if’m honest. Didn’t have enough magicite to be scientific about it.” Cian, though, wasn’t particularly concerned about that. The cards could kill you, too, if you ran afoul of some bad luck. These dice, experimental as they were, were unlikely to do worse. So he shrugged and said, “Guess I’ll keep from throwing them around my bedroom. It’ll be fine. Thanks for the hard work, kid.” They didn’t look like much, it was true, but looks could be deceiving. And the kid, wide-eyed and obviously impressed, was less likely to fuck with him than most of the other machinists he could call on right about now. He’d been thinking of ways to depend more on his own people -- and that meant he needed people, first. Here was a start at that. At least if he died from the dice, it wouldn’t be purposeful. “I’ll figure it out as I go along,” he said. A pause, then: “Want to come run some tests with me? Probably still won’t be too scientific, not the way you’re used to, but if things work out, you’ll be making more of these.” Nate grinned. Was that even really a question? “Absolutely,” he said firmly. A standing commission with Cian Wilde? And the chance to watch him blow stuff up with something Nate had made? He’d have to be nuts to pass it up. |