[He gives an appreciative and amused ah, at her little joke. Not falling down laughing, but it's some fashion of appreciation, at least.]
They must be rather tight with their funds as of late, and they will be putting around that we are all to be glad of it, but I will tell you, I am not glad of it. For how can we find success if we are to be so restricted in this way?
Our diplomats must repair to wealthy sympathy to find us backing. And soon, I think. I know all about securing funding, but I shall be entirely too busy these days.
Still--ore cannot cost so much, can it? Two... hundred Royals, for some ounces or so, perhaps?
Ounces! [She laughs, sudden and bright and very genuine thanks in large part to her surprise. She takes two steps in quick succession without thinking then stops entirely there on the third to fix him with an alarmed look.]
Hold on. Have you ever seen a Qunari cannon before?
Do these sketches-- what are the dimensions indicated on them?
[A small flame of uneasiness is rising suddenly in her. It brings with it a certain stricken kind of dread, not dissimilar from having shown up to a conference with an exceptional bit of documentation on the theory of transductive magic, only to realize that the whole affair was to be a symposium on transmaterial enchanting, and that it is too late to fix it. You've had the copies made and delivered already. What is there to do but throw yourself in the nearest river or under the wheel of the most convenient passing carriage?]
[What kind of backwards logic-- Do they carry their cannon in their hands? That isn't a cannon, you imbecile. Only maybe it is. The drawings she'd studies hadn't noted scale or operation or--]
No reason whatsoever. Merely curiosity. No, I wouldn't expect a few ounces of ore would be too difficult to procure. In fact, we might find a sponsor. There are many well-appointed individuals in our ranks, you know. Or connected to them. [She's rambling now, speaking quickly as she turns and hurries down the stairwell. What's your plan, Wysteria? Put your thumb over all the measurements on your schematics?] No matter. Follow me. Quickly now; I don't have all day.
[A slight contraction of the eyebrows is all that breaks Val's glassy polite amused exterior. Okay then.
He takes off after her, without as great a hurry, content to stroll down the stairs and let Wysteria get quite ahead of him in her rush. Perhaps this will prove to calm her nerves over whatever peculiar mood has turned her head so. Some scholars, he thinks, and manages to be fond and diminutive and amused all at once in that thought.
Calling after her--] Mademoiselle, I believe that it was you who stopped first. But by your leisure, or otherwise, apparently. As we walk I hope you will tell me all of the well-appointed individuals in our ranks.
The-- The people of means, sir. [This said absently, her attention clearly already at their destination.] Who might not be able to fund an army, but could certainly-- Ah! Here we are!
[A suddenly right hand turn and she bursts out of the stairwell through a narrow door and into an even narrower corridor, from which a series of cluttered work spaces extend. She wades directly into one, weaving through a series of stacked books (borrowed from and not returned to the Gallows' library, no doubt), stepping over a crate of smoky bottles filled with some kind of liquid, and at last dumping the case in her arms onto the table below the narrow slip of a window.]
Now, you will recall that I said these were very rough designs. [Had she said so? She can't remember. It seems possible. May as well plant the idea.] So you must take them with a grain of salt as you review them.
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 ) Date: 2019-07-29 04:25 am (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?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-05-18 01:43 am (UTC)They must be rather tight with their funds as of late, and they will be putting around that we are all to be glad of it, but I will tell you, I am not glad of it. For how can we find success if we are to be so restricted in this way?
Our diplomats must repair to wealthy sympathy to find us backing. And soon, I think. I know all about securing funding, but I shall be entirely too busy these days.
Still--ore cannot cost so much, can it? Two... hundred Royals, for some ounces or so, perhaps?
no subject
Date: 2019-06-17 05:39 pm (UTC)Hold on. Have you ever seen a Qunari cannon before?
no subject
Date: 2019-06-18 04:51 am (UTC)Of course I have. I have made extensive study of their sketches and learned much of them.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-18 05:49 am (UTC)[A small flame of uneasiness is rising suddenly in her. It brings with it a certain stricken kind of dread, not dissimilar from having shown up to a conference with an exceptional bit of documentation on the theory of transductive magic, only to realize that the whole affair was to be a symposium on transmaterial enchanting, and that it is too late to fix it. You've had the copies made and delivered already. What is there to do but throw yourself in the nearest river or under the wheel of the most convenient passing carriage?]
no subject
Date: 2019-06-19 07:45 pm (UTC)[He gestures, to indicate: large. Shifts his expression to match, and denote how intimidating and worthy of admiration such proportions are.]
--yes? So it makes sense to arm one's self to match such an impressive size and girth and all.
But, please! Why is it that you ask?
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 12:32 am (UTC)No reason whatsoever. Merely curiosity. No, I wouldn't expect a few ounces of ore would be too difficult to procure. In fact, we might find a sponsor. There are many well-appointed individuals in our ranks, you know. Or connected to them. [She's rambling now, speaking quickly as she turns and hurries down the stairwell. What's your plan, Wysteria? Put your thumb over all the measurements on your schematics?] No matter. Follow me. Quickly now; I don't have all day.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-25 03:12 am (UTC)He takes off after her, without as great a hurry, content to stroll down the stairs and let Wysteria get quite ahead of him in her rush. Perhaps this will prove to calm her nerves over whatever peculiar mood has turned her head so. Some scholars, he thinks, and manages to be fond and diminutive and amused all at once in that thought.
Calling after her--] Mademoiselle, I believe that it was you who stopped first. But by your leisure, or otherwise, apparently. As we walk I hope you will tell me all of the well-appointed individuals in our ranks.
[Get it.]
no subject
Date: 2019-07-28 07:06 pm (UTC)[A suddenly right hand turn and she bursts out of the stairwell through a narrow door and into an even narrower corridor, from which a series of cluttered work spaces extend. She wades directly into one, weaving through a series of stacked books (borrowed from and not returned to the Gallows' library, no doubt), stepping over a crate of smoky bottles filled with some kind of liquid, and at last dumping the case in her arms onto the table below the narrow slip of a window.]
Now, you will recall that I said these were very rough designs. [Had she said so? She can't remember. It seems possible. May as well plant the idea.] So you must take them with a grain of salt as you review them.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-29 04:24 am (UTC)[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
Date: 2019-07-29 04:44 am (UTC)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
Date: 2019-07-29 02:34 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2019-07-30 12:47 am (UTC)[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
Date: 2019-07-30 04:17 am (UTC)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
Date: 2019-07-30 04:27 am (UTC)[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
Date: 2019-07-30 03:05 pm (UTC)[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
Date: 2019-07-31 12:12 am (UTC)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
Date: 2019-08-05 04:46 pm (UTC)[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
Date: 2019-08-05 05:45 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2019-08-05 09:13 pm (UTC)[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
Date: 2019-08-05 10:24 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2019-08-06 03:02 am (UTC)[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?
no subject
Date: 2019-08-06 03:24 am (UTC)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
Date: 2019-08-06 09:54 pm (UTC)Your pardon, Mademoiselle Canon. You could not.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-06 11:12 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2019-08-07 02:16 pm (UTC)[An expansive gesture. Go on.]
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