Rainbows are fun!
Continued from here.
Winston had a healthy supply of rainbow wood from the Phoenix Tree he sourced in advance of the construction of Isonomia's ships. He was attempting to work out how to imbue the properties he needed into the wood in order to make the ships more resilient, faster and generally speaking super-awsome. This was however, a genuinelu top secret project and as such, he had uncharacteristically locked the door to the forge while he tinkered.
"Angela was a bit cagy totrial." Observed
Joe
, conversationally as the Alchemist worked the Alchemical lacker into the wood of the small branch he had made. It didn't look like much more than a branch that had it's bark removed, it's surface tidied up and the 'handle' end shaped crudely into something that looked like a handle of sorts. At best it war crude, at worst it was a stick... But this was not the point currently. His current goal was simply experimenting with getting alchemical properties into the wood. He'd worked extensively with metal, but wood was new and need a totally different approach. Rather than working the properties into the material during smelting, the wood, absorbent as it was, need to have some form of 'treatment' applied to it, that it could absorb."Yeah, she es out to de dacks tuhtrial. Me made 'er some fud an' she knows wat she es doin'. Plus, she cun get en touch ef she needs os." The ferret could be mistaken for being indifferent towards the girls comings and going, but the truth was as far from that as salt is from sugar.
"What are you doing now?!" The spirit exclaimed as the ferret lifted the small twig-like branch, apparently intent on smashing it.
"Wat? Me gat tuh test et, see ef et worked..." His expression was one of simplicity as he gave his reply. He whacked the branch down on to the table with a grunt. It it let out a solid *TWACK*
as the solidity transferred to it
from the lacker made of Iron did its job
.He beamed at his Forged spirit friend. "OK, one down, next es de stealth... We gat tuh work out 'ow we are gonna activate et... dat's de biggest challenge. We need tuh 'ave et turn an an' af some 'ow, but dere es going tuh be soh much 'ship' tuh work wid..." He mused aloud, rhetorically as he cleared out the
Alchemical Forge
ready to work on the next property."What else are you planning to do?"
Winston considered the glyphs he should use carefully. When the time came, he'd need to make a larger area to work in, in order to make enough to cover an entire ship, but for now he selected one of his existing bowelled forge plates and draw with his chalk the glyphs Kisaik had taught him for soil. "De ships need to be tough an' stealthy." He placed the glyphs down and prepared the oil that would take on the properties to be worked into the branch.
Joe floated over to the shield Winston was making for Kisaik with a confused look on his face. "Why not make them regenerate themselves? I mean, they would be next to indestructible then."
The ferret had to admit that this was a very appealing prospect, but sadly, not a feasible one. "De numba af Emperor Bat's an' Peganats me wud need to add dat prapaty tuh jost ONE ship might wipe both af dees things af de face af Sclavaris!... Noh, et's jost nat passible tuh make sometin' dat big do dis wid me current process." He was not ruling such a thing out. Perhaps Domain Magic or even Devine Magic could do it, but alchemy, currently, would require a genocidal supply of animal parts and he was not that kind of ferret.
"Good point... So what you going to do then?" The Diri continued, as the alchemist placed a sample of Minithelite into the interlocking collection of circles and glyphs.
"Dem will jost 'ave tuh be as 'ard tuh 'it an' a tough as passible an' we 'ope dat will be enough." There was an even mix of hope and resignation in the Ferret's tone. He was certain that the ships could do a lot of good, but even if they were sunk on trial one, he was also certain that this would not be through a lack of effort on his part.
"Man, it really would be awesome to have the ships mend themselves though. Are you SURE you cannot spare a few hundred bats?" Joe's tone was fasitiouse and far from serious, but still, it really WOULD be cool.
Starting to heat the Minithelite to allow it's properties to be accessed, he chuckled. "Yus, quite sure, Joe. Anyway. A sunk ship is still a sunk ship even ef et mends itself. Et's one ting tuh place abshield an a shelf far a trial while et fixes a hole, bot ef et took dat lang for a ship tuh do et, den yuh would be admiring it's indestructibility fram de battam af de sea in any case."
Joe's mouth opened and closed soundlessly a couple of times before he conceded to his companions flawless logic. "Ok, yeah, that's not so useful... Alright, so it's going to hide then..."
"Yeah..." He started preparing the binding agents and the trigger (soil).
"So, like ALL the time?" The spirit floated past
Smokie
as they stirred the oil and gave the bellows a pump."Nah, me cannat make dem invisible... Dat's still beyond me at de moment." It was obvious that this failing in the alchemist's capabilities was something he admitted with great regret.
"Well, that's where moving fast comes in!" Announced Joe, finally feeling like he was following the plan.
The Forge and all it's ingredients were nearly ready to begin the real work. "Yup an' dat..." He said pointing towards the raft of papers covering the desk on the far side of the room. "Cmon! Lets sing." Commanded Winston playfully. Joe looked over at the peper adn then back at the forge before signing. "OK, but then you explain that to me, ok?"
Smiling, they began to sing and work the forge as the alchemy started to take place...
Later that trial...
They stood back and admired their work, having stabbed the branch into a small pot full of soil and watching
as it began to fade into its surroundings
. Winston smiled, satisfaction taking hold. "Fire resistant, 'ard as iron an' difficault tuh see... Pretty gud ef we cun get an ample enough supply af Minithelite far an entire ship.""Where are you going to find that?"
He chuckled, taking a sip of hit tea and a bight of pie. "Dat es a tamarrow-me prablem an' per'aps sometin' dat Woe cun 'elp os wid. Anyway, we need tuh take a look intuh dat." He said gesturing towards the papers from before. Joe jumpped suddenly remembering their existence. "OH! Yes! What is it?"
"Well, me gat de lab tuh
do a lital research far meh
. While dem doh dat, me 'ave been workin' an a method af manipulatin' the way in which de Miragestones project dams images."Joe floated over to the table. There was a cloth covering some things to one side and a wide range of drawings and scribbled short-hand notes. It was times like these that he really wishing he had hands. "Pssssst. Smokie, do a fella a solid an..." But the diri of helpfulness simply held up one finger and waggled it from side to side in a 'no way' fasion. "...Ugh. You're no fun."
Smiling to himself, Winston made his way over, uncovering a box with a range of materials from Isonomia's supply, both mundane and magical for Joe to see. "Dis..." He began, picking up a small metal ball on the end of a chain, the size that might comfortably hand from an earlobe as an earing. "...es a miragestone item." He focused some energy into it and a mirage of himself appeared. "Me want tuh make someting like dis, bot dat will work an' de branch ova dere." He picked up another similar item, dangling one off each finger and focusing again. As he did this, a second image of himself appeared, sound and all, but it appeared so close to himself, that it overlapped him. "Me 'ave been experimentin' wid 'ow de images project. Dis one..." He said picking up a third. "...didn't work. Me tink me failed tuh get it to project outta de item." He shrugged. the loss of a few Wells was worth the potential pay-off.
Joe looked from one to the other as the ferret pulled a funny face. "Yuh want tuh do that to de ship?"
Winston's broad smile nealy split his head in two. "Yup... Yuh cannot sink a ship unless yuh cun hit et and yuh cannat hit a ship dat es nat really dere."
"Oh wow! That is cool!"
Notes
Winston has worked extensively with Mirage stones, creating things like the Holo-com, etc. and this simple projection is just the basic capability of the Miragestone and nothing new to him. The only 'new concept' here is getting it to project the image of what it hangs on, instead of the person activating it, whihc to be clear, this thread is only setting out as his goal and not claiming approval for success.
Original template credit, love and admiration goes to Kisaik
