Riyeko Lionward; The reserved and nervous inventor (thebesttoys) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-03-18 20:13:00 |
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Riyeko couldn’t help the frown at that pulled at her lips as she looked at the contraption laid out before her. Regardless of the safety features, no matter how much she tried to work around it, this just wasn’t seeming to work out. Especially, with the difficulty that the actress using it was still seeming to have. A half thoughtful pout had formed as Riyeko examined it. If she could just figure out how to tweak things. Maybe if she just…. No. But if she…. That wouldn’t work either. However if she…. Another idea down the drain. A low puff of air let her cheeks go back to normal, and some of the frustration in her mind and body abated with the action. It was really starting to seem like trying to figure out how to incorporate Red Fangs and other spell casting materials was going to be the only option here, but… That would take a bit of time still, some work yet to go. And if she finalized those changes just a few weeks before the show, could Ari learn to use it? Riyeko just about had the proper dosages and mixtures worked out, all it would need was a trigger function and maybe if she... Riyeko’s cheeks puffed out again. There just had to be a solution! She knew it! Though, there would only be one way to figure out how to answer some of those questions, and that would be asking the bard herself. Thus, why this meeting was so vitally important today. A glance was offered up at the clock. Hopefully, Ari would be here soon. ‘Soon,’ for Ari, was a relative term. She arrived sometime past the start of the appointed meeting, though it was well before its end (by her measure, this was considered on time), carrying a bag emitting the smell of food. This meeting would take the place of the lunch break she usually had between the play and her trek to the guildhall for Romulus and Juliana rehearsal, after all -- it was probably better not to go hungry. Considering the amount of energy she was expending healing herself every other day, not to mention running from acting to singing and back again (half that time in a metal harness), she really thought she couldn’t be blamed. She offered the machinist a smile as she waltzed into the room, setting her instrument case down by a chair, upon which she subsequently sprawled. “I’m late again,” she said, more statement of fact than apology. “I hope you haven’t been waiting for me long?” She tried to control the urge to make a face at the harness that was causing her so many problems. it wasn’t the machinist’s fault that she was hopeless (probably), but she really did wish she could stop injuring herself sometime before the curtain went up on their one-night performance. Suppressing her own winces and various other reactions to pain under the watchful eyes of an audience did not seem like her personal idea of a good time. How much time she had been waiting was a matter of debate. While Riyeko knew from working with arty types that they tended to run late, keeping appointments on time, and finished in an appropriate manner always left her antsy, and working around as many bards as she did never helped that. Often times while working through a show - when she had to - she’d find her stress levels through the roof with not knowing when one was going to show or… not. Then there was issue of having mapped out their time carefully, and when one didn’t show appropriately, that simply meant that something needed to be cut out. Which… Considering how important all of it was while working with such delicate - and potentially destructive machinery - that was quite a hard call to make. “Oh, um, no, no worries!” Riyeko chirped regardless of the anxiety rising in her gut. Today they’d have to cut out the re-fitting. Ari would continue having to work with this model for just a little longer. “I do have some questions though.” A glance was given to the clock. Would they have enough time to go through them all? “I know right now the machine’s working on spell power, but might it be better if it was more like a piece of ranged weaponry? Like, if you could aim, and pull a trigger, might that work better?” Ari laughed, immediately imagining the results of such an experiment. “Well,” she said, “I would probably stop hurting myself. I can’t make any guarantees for others; the only ranged weapon I’ve ever handled was a gun, and the friend who tried to teach me took it away after two attempts to fire it, calling me a hazard to society. Honestly?” She sighed. “I think at this point I should just try to learn to use this one, though I’ll bow to your superior knowledge.” She couldn’t deny the thought of no more burns appealed, but really… she did not want to be known as the bard who burned down the Sphere Theatre. “Oh, um, okay. Then, I might have a solution for you.” A pause as Riyeko attempted to calculate the changes in the harness. “It’ll take a little bit to hammer out though.” A frown was offered as she looked over the device, as if trying to size it up for precisely what had been on her mind at this point. “It’ll use spell casting items, in smaller quantities in order to produce magical effects then, but I’ll have to make sure there’s an adjustment knob, just in case we need more firepower for some of the bigger scenes.” A pause as her face screwed up for a moment, seeming to consider everything all over again. “You said you were skilled in sleight of hand, right?” Riyeko was fairly certain she recalled Ari confirming this before but… One could never be too sure. Checking, and double checking your data was what was called for to lower potential error ratio, and with something like this? Well, they needed it to be as low as it could go. “Yes,” Ari said with a nod. “I’m better at almost anything up close than when I have to judge distance.” She had good hands -- the boy who had taught her to pick locks had waxed poetic about how she was in the wrong field -- but when it came to judging distance, things tended to get dicey. She was probably lucky that in the event that she was without recourse and had to draw a weapon, daggers required her to get very close to any potential opponent. Even Aud, with her boundless love, had refused to ever teach her to actually throw anything. “What would you want me to do, exactly?” she asked, curious despite herself. She couldn’t deny that she had a preference for smoke and mirrors over hard science, especially considering how well science was serving her just now. “I think I can rig up the machine so that you effectively have to fire a propelled blast of magical energy based out of a pressured blast shooting forward the contents of a magic casting item like a Red Fang or other thing needed. I could probably need to incorporate switches for you to move between the different casting types, and another to adjust the ‘casting’ strength but....” A pause, hesitation as she continued to look over the machine with a deep consideration. Though, after a moment, she’d seem to snap out of that, her posture turning a bit uncomfortable as her concentration broke. “Well, um, I think I can.” A pause. “But it wouldn’t be ready for at least another week.” Riyeko couldn’t help but shift slightly uncomfortably. “And then it would be a prototype while it was refined, and finalized for opening night, but…” A glance was cast back to the current machine. “You’d still need to deal with this one a week longer, and then adjust to a whole new set of mechanics. Could you do that?” “The switching shouldn’t be a problem,” Ari said thoughtfully. That sort of manipulation wouldn’t be much of a challenge in the wide sleeves of the robe she would wear onstage. SOmething on the inside of her wrist, maybe... “The aiming… I guess all I can say is, ‘we’ll see.’” She smiled and added, “Contrary to how it may look, I promise, I’m trying. And I’m better now than I was.” Marginally. “In any case, knock on wood,” she did, on the table between them, “but I haven’t set myself fully on fire yet, nor anyone else for that matter.” With that, she dug into her bag, pulled out a sandwich. Half an hour from now (more or less -- in her case, almost certainly more) she was due for her next rehearsal. “Don’t worry, I’ll do my best not to break this one -- or myself -- until the new one is done. Who knows? Maybe by then I’ll be halfway competent.” A self-deprecating laugh followed as she took another bite of the sandwich, chewed, swallowed. “I suppose what I am saying is, I’ll try. I’ll try to squeeze in some time for a bit of extra practice, too,” a sigh, there were not enough hours in the day, “so hopefully I won’t be your biggest headache for much longer.” Riyeko couldn’t help but bite at her lower lip with the nervousness beginning to swell up in the pit of her stomach. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe they shouldn’t try it, maybe it’d be more trouble in the end, maybe… “We’ll give it a try, and worse comes to worst, you’ll just have to stick with the one you’ve already been dealing with.” A strained smile popped up then, at least there was the option to attempt it, to try to do something more than what they’d been managing thus far. “It’s a hard device to use!” The machinist chirped. She’d lost count of the number of hours she’d sunk into tweak, and try to push the machine to work properly, to be lighter, to be more efficient. “But I’m sure if it comes to it, you’ll get it down just fine.” And another smile. “I’m not sure we have any more time today though. We’ll have to make another appointment I think. Did you need any size adjustments though? I thought it looked a little loose?” When that appointment would be though… Well, it was better not to think about that right now, otherwise she might end up with another headache before long. “It is a little loose,” Ari admitted with a sigh. Maybe it was all the running around she was doing lately? The contraption had been chafing her shoulder, another item on the list of reasons why she didn’t like having to wear the thing. And it seemed like she would have to put it on once more -- she had hoped to be done with it today, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped… “Here, I’ll show you; it should only take a second.” She put the sandwich down and slipped the device on as she said, “Next week, same time, more or less?” Another lunch sacrificed, but she supposed that couldn’t be helped, either. She had chosen this mad schedule, she reminded herself. Chosen it in a fit of drunken insanity, but chosen it all the same. Once she was strapped into the thing, she twisted at the waist -- just as she had to do in act two -- and said, “See, look, a little here, also here, and a little here…” If she ignored the fact that this thing could and did injure her, she could pretend this was just another costume fitting. |