Hm? Oh, yes, of course. I have been looking for this, you know.
[Having followed her all the way down here, Val is now holding up one of the books. A minor point, yet it must be made.]
The library is sad enough as it is, without book hoarders to make its supply much sadder. I understand your instinct--there is nothing quite like Sautreau for the four standards of two-component explosives--but really.
[And he sticks the book under his arm, clearly intending to carry it off with him, and comes closer to examine whatever it is she's doing.]
"A grain of salt". Where does it go?
Edited (srry i can't miss the opportunity for a face off w wysteria ) 2019-07-29 04:25 (UTC)
[She half turns to respond, her face twisted along the lines of 'What on earth are you--', and then she seems to think better of the whole notion.]
Never mind the salt. And put that book down. I haven't copied out chapter four yet.
[This as she retrieves a heavy rolled piece of parchment from the rack at the back of the cluttered desk. A pause follows. It's a very, very brief one in which she feels and summarily dismisses a tiny chip of uncertainty. And then she shakes it out, lying the schematic out as flat as is possible on the desk. She pins one corner - the one with the dimensions- with a heavy candle holder and plants her hand on the notes in the lower most margin.]
[You never mind the salt, is what Val would say, if he were determined toward pettiness. He isn't, so he only thinks it, and makes sort of a face at Wysteria--so there--and does not put the book down.
The moment she unrolls her schematic, that all changes. The book might as well exist in a rift somewhere, for all that Val is thinking of it. He leans in to examine what is before him--then steps to the right, to examine from that angle--and then tips his head to the left, to examine from that angle--]
Ah, I see! The two reinforcement chambers--what are the dimensions, please? I must know. And the shape you have chosen is interesting--I was, early on, committed to a shape rather like a vase, but as you have it here, to lengthen its mouth--I believe that to be better-- How would its shot made to combust? Is there a marker on here to say? I had experimented with the slowmatch--useful in demolitions for mining, or even for construction, when one must level some geological obstacle--
As you say I had considered the use of a linstock. See here on the schematic, the flash pan. But there is an alternative. Here, let me draw it for you.
[She trades the plant of her hand on the margin notes for a shielding piece of scrap paper and, from some wholly illogical point in her pinned up hair, Wysteria draws a metal pen. Without first dipping it into anything, she begins to draw out a series of exceptionally rough shapes vaguely resembling a flintlock. Clearly she'd used a ruler for the schematic.]
It may be gilding the lily as it were, but there's something to be said for not having to run around with a burning stick or worry about the weather. You see, with this-- here, that would be a flint there in this little knobbly part-- you could attach a pull here, which would cause the flint to strike this bit here when the lever is released. Or, er-- I suppose if the cannon was small enough to be carried in the hand, you might simply attach a little toggle here to pull.
[Spirits, her father is feeling a pulse of mortification somewhere. A toggle, Wysteria? Really now.]
[Nodding, Val examines the schematic as she speaks and illustrates on the edge. The peculiar pen gets a look of its own as well, as she continues to write with it, entirely unaided by ink.]
There are always people running about in battles, bearing arrows and crossbow bolts and things. It wouldn't be a trouble to have every third one carry the flame. But the weather, yes-- Now, where would this toggle go? Here?
[He puts one finger down on the larger and more precise drawing, looking back and forth from her sketch to the full schematic, to keep them both in his view at once.]
But really, making the whole thing handheld would alter this entire section here. You'd want a proper grip. Something more like-- [Scratch, scratch goes the pen.] This.
[Val shifts his arm a little to allow for the finger movement. This means that, completely by accident, some part of his sleeve moves the piece of parchment obscuring the dimensions. Not that he knows this to be the dimensions, he just knows that it is covered from his sight. Forbidden knowledge.
Not that he moved that bit of parchment on purpose! Indeed, he is studying with great interest the rest of the schematic, and the little edit that she makes.]
I must tell you, mademoiselle, I feel strongly about this being handheld. A personal device, that might be carried about, would see more use in the field, yes? The infrastructure required to move about large engines of war--but instead, a soldier might bear the burden himself, as he would any piece of his equipment.
[Her own attention has strayed from the shielding bit of paper in favor of the larger picture. With a flare of real enthusiasm even:]
Something in the hand would be much more convenient. And more easily manufactured. The trouble is the quality of the explosive. Say what you like about engines of war - you can pour a lot more powder or oil or whatever you're using to make it go bang into them.
That is my favorite thing about engines of war: the size of the destruction. The explosion! There is very little that I love more than the massive ruination one has chance to see at such a time. It is utter, complete--a starting over, a blanking of the field. Where once there was, there suddenly is not. It is like a poem, a musing on Opportunity, an ode to Chance. What follows? Who can say! In battle, such destruction can be the very line that undoes one ending and writes another. And then once the battle is done, what possibility there is, that remains behind! There is nothing like it in all the world--except perhaps death itself, in some ways.
[Such passion! Such feeling! Such animation! All of it culminating in--]
Though-- [What a word. Though. How it hangs, like a blade. There have been many before Wysteria Poppell--pretty men, pretty women, fellow students of clever minds, scholars with accreditation galore--who have stood beside Val just like this, looking over a page, lulled into a kind of camaraderie, inspired by the fervor of his passion--only to then find themselves abruptly threatened by that same word. Though. Perhaps one day she, too, will learn to tremble at its wielding. Perhaps this is the day.] --I wonder, mademoiselle, can you answer me one question on this schematic? It is a small thing.
[Though. It's a very simple word. Later, maybe, she will realize how it was strung like a trip wire. But in the moment?]
Of course. Anything at all.
[She is in the process of making a note just there on the corner of the schematic itself with that neat little pen, halfway through a looping sentence. Like a poem, he'd said, and she'd nearly laughed. What a lovely and macabre flight of fancy.]
[This: the notes in the lower most margin, the one she had previously covered with her hand. Open, exposed, subjected to Val's interest and polite but knowing smile.]
But I could not help, to notice. You had them covered, earlier, when you laid out these plans. My curiosity is caught.
[Her pen pauses and it is only well-bred, well-practiced habit that has it rising from the page rather than driving down into it and blotting out the tail of the sentence she'd been in the midst of.]
Oh? [In the tones one might use were they shut their fingers in a door and then pretend to have done so purposefully.] That?
[Yes that. All light and breezy and gaining in speed and certainly not going very red up the back of her neck as she resumes her scribbling:] That's-- conjecture. Merely an early iteration in the drafting process when we were still part of the Inquisition and we might have had the opportunity to make something on a more radical scale. You may disregard it entirely. What is of more concern to me is the explosive agent. We might acquire ore in small sums and even create a prototype, but we may as well be throwing rocks at one another without an incendiary that can deliver enough force from a small quantity. It may be worthwhile to experiment with some kind of enchantment if you don't believe you'll be able to synthesize something powerful enough.
[An understanding murmur, and Val nods to demonstrate his understanding. Yes, of course. He leans back in to consider what she is writing now.]
I am not opposed to partnering with one who might be able to produce such an incendiary with enchantment if it means the explosion happens larger, and more quickly. Indeed there was such a time where I wished I possessed such a capability myself. It would have been very shocking and scandalizing to my family, if I had been.
But to say that I might not believe myself able! You could hardly say something more wrong. Of course I believe myself. It is my work, yes? A passion that I hold most dear. A knowledge I have learned much of. What more would be needed?
[Well-- no, hold on. That isn't what he was meant to say. She frowns at him.]
Is there some other candidate you had in mind to do it? Because I can all but guarantee there is no one more qualified. Certainly not here in Kirkwall.
No? Well, let us begin there. What are your particular qualifications that you believe would suit you so well, so as to being able to assist with designing something so fitting?
[She opens her mouth-- she balks-- and then Wysteria pulls yet another scrap piece of paper over the schematic.]
Here is where I would like to experiment with the modification of enchantments. The shape of the rune is part of its power. If it were split here, between hammer and pan, and if both were located directly behind the barrel rather than to the side, it might be possible to control the expression of force by limiting it to the moment when the two halves of the rune come into alignment.
[While speaking, she's drawn out two rough shapes: the hammer of their little handheld cannon ratched back on its mechanism to show some wiggly approximation of a rune and the striking block waiting beneath it with a related squiggle.]
Which is just one possibility. I'd prefer you supply a chemical powder or oil. It would be much easier to reproduce.
[No one here cares what you did or didn't do in the place you came from, girl.]
[Again, the pull of innovation catches at Val. It will not be ignored. He is looking at her sketching nearly the moment her hand begins to move, thinking, weighing, considering.]
But you mean to say that if I could not supply such things, you would be able to create these runes, to fill the task?
[He tips his head to consider the wiggly rune.]
Are these dissimilar to the glyph that a mage might employ?
Well-- because it is a very specialized practice. It would be much easier to replicate a chemical solution than to-- and there is no guarantee I'll be here forever, you know. Sometimes we, Rifters I mean, go-- back.
[Which sounds like a question, but certainly isn't.]
It would be better for the longevity of the project, sir. To attempt some alchemical solution first.
[He's already starting to talk over her, before she's quite finished, taking advantage of how tentative that sounds--sounds like a question, but isn't, and yet the gap is there to be exploited--]
Yes, the longevity--of course, the longevity--how sensible you are-- But in the immediate, of course. In the immediate, we might use this 'specialized practice', yes? So that we can progress the design, and then, we will work on the alchemical solution--I have some ideas to that end at the ready, of course, it is part of my fondest interest--but far more interesting is to see the design put into practice.
You do want to see this design put into its practice, yes? We are surely of one mind on this, you and I.
Well I don't see why I would design it if I didn't want something done with-- yes, of course it should be developed for use. I am merely cautioning that a workable prototype does not necessarily imply a practical--
[Wysteria. She checks herself.]
Who do you mean to source the ore from? The modification of the glyph may take a considerable amount of my attention, and we will need the raw materials and the ability to mold and cast them. I have every confidence that Kenna might oversee the actual manufacture, but the tools themselves will need to be sourced or designed.
[So. He gestures, pleased. They do want the same thing, is what the gesture means. How marvelous, is what the gesture means.]
I can secure ore easily, given the proper time in which to arrange for it. The funding shall be entirely personal, of course. But I must request them by letter, and allow for a suitable time for the conversion to take place--it is all gemstones and real estate, you know, very fashionable but not very practical for such purchases--and for arrangements to be made for the carriage to bring the gold back to me once that business is done. It is all so complicated what one must do for funding, yes?
And all of this while you apply yourself most charmingly to the modification of this glyph. Who is this "Kenna"?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[Having followed her all the way down here, Val is now holding up one of the books. A minor point, yet it must be made.]
The library is sad enough as it is, without book hoarders to make its supply much sadder. I understand your instinct--there is nothing quite like Sautreau for the four standards of two-component explosives--but really.
[And he sticks the book under his arm, clearly intending to carry it off with him, and comes closer to examine whatever it is she's doing.]
"A grain of salt". Where does it go?
no subject
Never mind the salt. And put that book down. I haven't copied out chapter four yet.
[This as she retrieves a heavy rolled piece of parchment from the rack at the back of the cluttered desk. A pause follows. It's a very, very brief one in which she feels and summarily dismisses a tiny chip of uncertainty. And then she shakes it out, lying the schematic out as flat as is possible on the desk. She pins one corner - the one with the dimensions- with a heavy candle holder and plants her hand on the notes in the lower most margin.]
Voilà.
no subject
The moment she unrolls her schematic, that all changes. The book might as well exist in a rift somewhere, for all that Val is thinking of it. He leans in to examine what is before him--then steps to the right, to examine from that angle--and then tips his head to the left, to examine from that angle--]
Ah, I see! The two reinforcement chambers--what are the dimensions, please? I must know. And the shape you have chosen is interesting--I was, early on, committed to a shape rather like a vase, but as you have it here, to lengthen its mouth--I believe that to be better-- How would its shot made to combust? Is there a marker on here to say? I had experimented with the slowmatch--useful in demolitions for mining, or even for construction, when one must level some geological obstacle--
no subject
[Well. Time to improvise.]
As you say I had considered the use of a linstock. See here on the schematic, the flash pan. But there is an alternative. Here, let me draw it for you.
[She trades the plant of her hand on the margin notes for a shielding piece of scrap paper and, from some wholly illogical point in her pinned up hair, Wysteria draws a metal pen. Without first dipping it into anything, she begins to draw out a series of exceptionally rough shapes vaguely resembling a flintlock. Clearly she'd used a ruler for the schematic.]
It may be gilding the lily as it were, but there's something to be said for not having to run around with a burning stick or worry about the weather. You see, with this-- here, that would be a flint there in this little knobbly part-- you could attach a pull here, which would cause the flint to strike this bit here when the lever is released. Or, er-- I suppose if the cannon was small enough to be carried in the hand, you might simply attach a little toggle here to pull.
[Spirits, her father is feeling a pulse of mortification somewhere. A toggle, Wysteria? Really now.]
no subject
There are always people running about in battles, bearing arrows and crossbow bolts and things. It wouldn't be a trouble to have every third one carry the flame. But the weather, yes-- Now, where would this toggle go? Here?
[He puts one finger down on the larger and more precise drawing, looking back and forth from her sketch to the full schematic, to keep them both in his view at once.]
no subject
[She moves his finger.]
But really, making the whole thing handheld would alter this entire section here. You'd want a proper grip. Something more like-- [Scratch, scratch goes the pen.] This.
no subject
[Val shifts his arm a little to allow for the finger movement. This means that, completely by accident, some part of his sleeve moves the piece of parchment obscuring the dimensions. Not that he knows this to be the dimensions, he just knows that it is covered from his sight. Forbidden knowledge.
Not that he moved that bit of parchment on purpose! Indeed, he is studying with great interest the rest of the schematic, and the little edit that she makes.]
I must tell you, mademoiselle, I feel strongly about this being handheld. A personal device, that might be carried about, would see more use in the field, yes? The infrastructure required to move about large engines of war--but instead, a soldier might bear the burden himself, as he would any piece of his equipment.
no subject
Something in the hand would be much more convenient. And more easily manufactured. The trouble is the quality of the explosive. Say what you like about engines of war - you can pour a lot more powder or oil or whatever you're using to make it go bang into them.
no subject
[Such passion! Such feeling! Such animation! All of it culminating in--]
Though-- [What a word. Though. How it hangs, like a blade. There have been many before Wysteria Poppell--pretty men, pretty women, fellow students of clever minds, scholars with accreditation galore--who have stood beside Val just like this, looking over a page, lulled into a kind of camaraderie, inspired by the fervor of his passion--only to then find themselves abruptly threatened by that same word. Though. Perhaps one day she, too, will learn to tremble at its wielding. Perhaps this is the day.] --I wonder, mademoiselle, can you answer me one question on this schematic? It is a small thing.
no subject
Of course. Anything at all.
[She is in the process of making a note just there on the corner of the schematic itself with that neat little pen, halfway through a looping sentence. Like a poem, he'd said, and she'd nearly laughed. What a lovely and macabre flight of fancy.]
no subject
[This: the notes in the lower most margin, the one she had previously covered with her hand. Open, exposed, subjected to Val's interest and polite but knowing smile.]
But I could not help, to notice. You had them covered, earlier, when you laid out these plans. My curiosity is caught.
no subject
Oh? [In the tones one might use were they shut their fingers in a door and then pretend to have done so purposefully.] That?
[Yes that. All light and breezy and gaining in speed and certainly not going very red up the back of her neck as she resumes her scribbling:] That's-- conjecture. Merely an early iteration in the drafting process when we were still part of the Inquisition and we might have had the opportunity to make something on a more radical scale. You may disregard it entirely. What is of more concern to me is the explosive agent. We might acquire ore in small sums and even create a prototype, but we may as well be throwing rocks at one another without an incendiary that can deliver enough force from a small quantity. It may be worthwhile to experiment with some kind of enchantment if you don't believe you'll be able to synthesize something powerful enough.
no subject
[An understanding murmur, and Val nods to demonstrate his understanding. Yes, of course. He leans back in to consider what she is writing now.]
I am not opposed to partnering with one who might be able to produce such an incendiary with enchantment if it means the explosion happens larger, and more quickly. Indeed there was such a time where I wished I possessed such a capability myself. It would have been very shocking and scandalizing to my family, if I had been.
But to say that I might not believe myself able! You could hardly say something more wrong. Of course I believe myself. It is my work, yes? A passion that I hold most dear. A knowledge I have learned much of. What more would be needed?
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The result of your enthusiasm, perhaps? Were I to be supplied with the solution, I have no doubt I would be able to design something fitting.
no subject
Your pardon, Mademoiselle Canon. You could not.
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Is there some other candidate you had in mind to do it? Because I can all but guarantee there is no one more qualified. Certainly not here in Kirkwall.
no subject
[An expansive gesture. Go on.]
no subject
Here is where I would like to experiment with the modification of enchantments. The shape of the rune is part of its power. If it were split here, between hammer and pan, and if both were located directly behind the barrel rather than to the side, it might be possible to control the expression of force by limiting it to the moment when the two halves of the rune come into alignment.
[While speaking, she's drawn out two rough shapes: the hammer of their little handheld cannon ratched back on its mechanism to show some wiggly approximation of a rune and the striking block waiting beneath it with a related squiggle.]
Which is just one possibility. I'd prefer you supply a chemical powder or oil. It would be much easier to reproduce.
[No one here cares what you did or didn't do in the place you came from, girl.]
no subject
But you mean to say that if I could not supply such things, you would be able to create these runes, to fill the task?
[He tips his head to consider the wiggly rune.]
Are these dissimilar to the glyph that a mage might employ?
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[Maybe. Theoretically.]
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Well-- because it is a very specialized practice. It would be much easier to replicate a chemical solution than to-- and there is no guarantee I'll be here forever, you know. Sometimes we, Rifters I mean, go-- back.
[Which sounds like a question, but certainly isn't.]
It would be better for the longevity of the project, sir. To attempt some alchemical solution first.
no subject
[He's already starting to talk over her, before she's quite finished, taking advantage of how tentative that sounds--sounds like a question, but isn't, and yet the gap is there to be exploited--]
Yes, the longevity--of course, the longevity--how sensible you are-- But in the immediate, of course. In the immediate, we might use this 'specialized practice', yes? So that we can progress the design, and then, we will work on the alchemical solution--I have some ideas to that end at the ready, of course, it is part of my fondest interest--but far more interesting is to see the design put into practice.
You do want to see this design put into its practice, yes? We are surely of one mind on this, you and I.
no subject
[Wysteria. She checks herself.]
Who do you mean to source the ore from? The modification of the glyph may take a considerable amount of my attention, and we will need the raw materials and the ability to mold and cast them. I have every confidence that Kenna might oversee the actual manufacture, but the tools themselves will need to be sourced or designed.
no subject
I can secure ore easily, given the proper time in which to arrange for it. The funding shall be entirely personal, of course. But I must request them by letter, and allow for a suitable time for the conversion to take place--it is all gemstones and real estate, you know, very fashionable but not very practical for such purchases--and for arrangements to be made for the carriage to bring the gold back to me once that business is done. It is all so complicated what one must do for funding, yes?
And all of this while you apply yourself most charmingly to the modification of this glyph. Who is this "Kenna"?
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