[Flashback] Thoughts of Contraptions (Minerva)

[Eridanus]

"Fair enough, but..." Eridanus replied, his voice trailing off as he further considered. He did not exactly have plenty of money to spare due to his puny apprenticeship with Wejerx's ex-apprentice here, but since his food and lodging was paid by Luineas Rowley he could not exactly complain. The valuable knowledge and experience he received was much more important than money.

"I don't have much on me though, don't you have some spare parts in your lab?" He asked hopefully, for he assumed that this girl was naturally a self-established gadgeteer based in Syliras. "Perhaps I could assist you in one of your current projects, and we won't have to go through that trouble. You get to get your job done in a faster time with me providing the additional labour, and in return I get the knowledge and experience."

He also had access to a variety of magical disciplines of course, though she knew as much about his magic as he did about her Animation - which was none.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock snorted and laughed when he asked to go back to her lab. "My lab, mate?" she asked. "Mine? Pfft... Ha! Does I look like I done gots my own lab?" She gestured down to her poor, frayed, travel- and grease-stained clothing. "I done got scrap we can work wit', but I ain't got the money what fer proper parts right now. Why ya think I'm workin' wit' 'is garbage?" She held up her little invention, which was clearly made with secondhand parts. "I ain't done been in the city but two days," she said. "Fresh outta Mura, I am! Done spent the summer workin' fer a lass up 'ere what makes music boxes an' whatnot. Ya know, wee gadgets fer artsy stuff, she does. Pretty little clocks an' wind up toys an' dancin' ceramic puppets an' junk like 'at. Learned 'er plenty, but she ain't wantin' ta make nothin useful, aye? So's I's 'ere learn more useful stuff, magic an' whatnot. But I ain't got no lab..." She shook her head. She WISHED she had a proper lab, with proper tools, so she could make more advanced devices. But until she came up with the money, she was limited mostly to trinkets. She could improvise a fair bit, but even that had its limits. "So, ya wanna learn somethin', mate," she said, "ya gotta 'elp provide the means. I done got the know-how, I got 'at right good! But the materials...?" She shook her head.

[Eridanus]

The vantha's eyes glazed as he tried to make sense of her words. Her accent was honestly quite hard to grasp, and when she spoke in long sentences quickly it took concentration just to understand what she meant. He caught her gist though, and he sighed.

"Oh alright. So you're an apprentice here? I'm the same too, actually. But I suppose my master treats me better than yours, from the look of things."

Handing the girl back the board that she burdened him with earlier, he continued, "So where do we go next?"

Waiting for her to lead the way, he added conversationally as they walked, "My name's Eridanus. What's yours?"

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"Oy, yer a 'prentice too, aye?" she asked, looking him over curiously. "Whatcha studyin'? I's doin' Magecraftin' an' Animation. Well, I's gonna be..." She hadn't actually started learning any magic yet, but Archimaneus had promised to start teaching her 'once she got settled in', whatever that meant. So far, it consisted of his damn cat pissing in her luggage, and her getting lost while she was out getting his boots. "I's Tock," she said, slapping him on the arm. "Nice ta meetcha!" She started leading him through the strange, twisting corridors of the fortress, though she had NO idea where she was going. She managed to find a shop along the way where they could pick up some parts and supplies, enough to at least put together some simple devices. She still didn't know quite what she was going to teach him to make, considering she was an amateur herself. So she just made sure to get enough variety that she could figure out the details later. She had to stop and ask for directions three times before she finally made her way back to Archimaneus' place. "We can work in my room, I guess," she said, shrugging. "Jus' don't mind the glow comin' from down the 'all." She led him into Archimaneus' apartments, which were among the more spacious, considering the wizard was rather well to do. Of course, he was a stingy old bastard, and had secluded Tock in a tiny room under the stairs. It was barely tall enough to stand up in, with just enough space for a cot shoved against the wall, a small table, and a single chair. She plopped down on the bed and pulled the table over, so that Eri could take the chair on the other side. Then she dumped the supplies all over the table. "Oy, so," she asked, "whatcha wanna learn most? Anythin' in particular yer lookin' fer?"

[Eridanus]

"Oh!" Eridanus exclaimed. "I am an apprentice in Magecrafting too! I studied under Professor Wejerx and his other colleagues while back in the University of Zeltiva, and he sent me here to do an internship stint with one of his ex-students to gain exposure and experience. Have you heard of Luineas Rowley, perhaps?"

He followed her in silence as they went to pick up supplies from a shop, and simply watched as she bought the items, cataloguing them in his mind for further analyses. Honestly, he had no idea what they did, but that was the mystery of gadgeteers - they could turn it all into something workable.

However, it seemed that she was not good at navigation, though he held his tongue regarding this point. It was only considerate to do so. Finally, they reached her place, and he looked at her in confusion when she asked him that question.

"I dunno... The whole art is just a mystery to me," He began. Pointing to the pieces of metal she laid on the floor, he shrugged, "How do you make stuff from all that stuff? Is there some sort of secret, or recipe, or formula to Gadgeteering?"

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"Nah, ain't 'eard o' 'em," she said with a small shake of her head. "Sorry, mate. But onta the fun stuff, aye?" She took out some paper and a quill. Since he seemed to know nothing about building things, she decided to start with something simple. The parts they'd bought at the shop were simple, and nothing fancy. She couldn't really build anything too fancy herself, anyway. "First thing's, ya gotta be able ta see whatcha want," she said, tapping the side of her head. "An' anythin' worth buildin', she's worth drawing up a plan, aye?" She started forming an image in her head, and began moving the quill across the paper. An idea had occurred to her, since they were discussing Magecraft. She wasn't skilled enough to design a proper clock yet, but she has an idea for a less complex timing device. "The Bossman," she nodded towards the hall, at the far end of which the wizard was working on an experiment of some sort, "says timing's important, aye? Rhythm, flow, 'at sorta thing." She didn't really know why timing was so important, yet. But he'd explained to her day one that precision, careful timing, and accuracy were key factors. "But I dunno 'bout you, mate," she continued, "but I ain't no good at keepin' time, aye? So's as ya build somethin' what fer ta do 'er fer ya!" Her drawing slowly evolved into a basic plan. A wind up mechanism powered a simple pendulum that would tick back and forth with a steady rhythm. In an actual clock, the swinging of a pendulum would power the turning of the gears to nice the clock hands, but in this case it powered nothing. It would just swing back and forth with a gentle tick, tock, tick, tock, creating a stable rhythm. During a Magecraft operation that required careful focus and timing, the background noise of the ticking would help her keep her timing right. She spent a fair bit of time sketching out the device, and working out the tension in the winding mechanism to calculate the speed of the ticking, making adjustments to the numbers to get it just right. This required calculating the circumference of the gears used to figure out how fast they would turn, and how that motion would transfer into the pendulum. There'd likely be some trial and error even after she worked the numbers out, but it was a good starting point. The end result was a diagram that showed the placement of each gear, and how they interacted with each other. "See, mate?" she said to Eridanus. "Ya jus' lay 'er down like she is, and figure 'ow ya gotta make 'er move. Workin' backwards is best, y'see. Main thing yer going fer is getting 'is 'see ta move," she tapped on the sketch of the pendulum, "so's as ya figure 'ow ta does 'at. 'Is doohickey 'ere," doohickey naturally being a VERY precise and technical term, "moves 'er back an' forth. An' 'ese gears transfer power from the winder." She led him through the steps of the design, one by one.

[Eridanus]

"Yes, timing is important," Eridanus agreed whole-heartedly. Especially in his main paradigm of Resonant Harmonics, timing was one of the most crucial aspects of magecrafting to him. However, his sense of timing and rhythm had been trained by years of experience and repetition rather than any precise mechanical device, and it intrigued him that she should know how to build one.

As she began drawing, he tried his best to understand the rationale for each step. He had an intelligent and logical mind, no doubt, but Gadgeteering was on a whole new league as far as he was concerned. They were engineers of complex and seemingly wondrous products, yet the only magic involved was the magic of their talent and vision.

This Tock had a rather informal style though, and he found himself wondering what in the world doohickery could possibly be.

"Excuse me," He interrupted. "But what exactly powers the continuous function of this time keeping device? Which of the Six Basic Machines does it use?"

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock shrugged when he asked about the basic principle behind the device. She hadn't really thought about it; her mind didn't work that way. She saw everything working in unison, not really stopping to think about each individual part. But she supposed she could explain. "Not really a 'time keeping' device," she said. "'Ose are way more complicated. 'Is jus' makes a wee tick tock, steady as she goes, aye? But ain't no clock o' nothin'." "'Is's basically a lever," she tapped on the pendulum. "An' 'is thingamajigger 'ere, she twists like a screw. An' the weight on 'ere spins 'is wheel, kinda like a pulley 'cept a wee different." She indicated the small weight that was wound up by the winding mechanism. When released, gravity would pull it down to spin the main wheel that transferred power to the pendulum. On a proper clock there were normally three of these, each calibrated differently to move the second, minute, and hour hands at different rates. But that was far more complex than Tock could handle right now. She ran her fingers over the designs to work him through it step by step. "So wind 'er up," she said, "let 'er loose, weight pulls down like a pulley, spins the wheel, twists the screw, which moves the lever back an' forth, an' the pendulum swings, bada-bing, 'ere she is!" She grinned, looking up at Eri. The way things could work in unison like that fascinated her. She couldn't wait until she could learn to build a real clock, with more complex parts, that would all work in unison and precision. This device probably wouldn't even be that precise; the back and forth motion of the pendulum might not remain steady the whole time. But it was the best she could do for now.

[Eridanus]

"The... thingamajigger?" Eridanus muttered, his brain trying to keep up with her speed of explanation. The topic was difficult enough that it required his utmost concentration, for he not only had to absorb her lecture, but also at the same time his eyes was roving the model she drew to understand its implications. Yet, her careless use of terms and her pronunciation and accent forced him to decipher her meaning first, before trying to understand the content, in effect doubling the difficulty. He was either a bad student, or she was a bad teacher.

In any case, he nodded as he repeated what she said once more, this time replacing her invented words with proper terms he had read in a gadgeteering textbook back in Zeltiva University, all the while elaborating on various points for clarification's sake while pointing to the drawing as he described. This was to make sure that he truly understood what she was going on about, and he would really like that confirmation before they began the actual practical work.

"Ok, so I'm assuming that the bunch of strange objects we bought earlier comprises of the machines you drew in your specifications?"

Rummaging through the bag which held the bunch of stuff they bought earlier, he took out one of the most recognizable object - one of the six basic machines of gadgeteering - the lever.

"We'll need this, yes?" He mumbled, as he returned his gaze to the drawing to see where the lever should be placed.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"Aye," she said when he asked if the parts would match up to the design. "'Ere, looksee." She started aligning the parts right on top of the diagram, since it was essentially a two dimensional design. A more complex device would have involved some of he components being laid out in layers. For example, the second, minute, and hour hands of a clock all worked on different rates of movement, and would need to be laid out in three separate layers of gears. But a simple metronome didn't require anything more than the most basic layout. "The thingamajigger connects to the doohickey," she explained, laying the lever next to the screw that would twist to turn it back and forth, along with the bolts and connectors that would combine them. "The doohickey connects to the whatchacaller," she continued, lining up the wheel and axle that would provide the turning motion to the screw, "an' the watchacaller connects ta the whozits and whatsits," she finished, aligning the pulley that connected to the simple weight. She didn't know the technical name for any of these things, since she had been taught hands-on, instead of out of a book. But she knew what they did, and that was what mattered. "Awright, so let's slap 'em together, aye?" she said with a grin. She started assembling the parts, first using her saw and chisels to cut out two pieces of wood to serve as the frame. She cut one into a plain rectangular base, and the other into a triangle whose tip matched the height of the lever. Then she nailed the two pieces together with the triangular piece rising from the back end of the base. The base was narrow, just wide enough to keep everything upright. Next she screwed the small pulley onto the axle, with the small wheel on the other end, which screwed into the back piece. She carefully tied a thin string onto the pulley, and tied the other end onto the small weight. When the device was placed on the edge of a shelf or table, the weight would hang off the edge and slowly pull down towards the ground. That motion turned the pulley, which rotated on the axle to turn the wheel, powering the motion of the device. She added another wooden piece to the end, carved from a thin bit of the wood she had cut off the base. Carved and filed down to a simple rectangular shape, it would serve as a crank to wind the device up, instead of twisting the pulley itself and tangling the string in your fingers. It took a bit of fiddling to line everything up, and the parts jammed a few times when she first tested it, prompting a string of vile and rather unladylike swears to issue from the redhead's lips. But she kept making adjustments, realigning the parts, tightening the bolts, and in a few spots filing down the edges of some of the metal pieces in order to make them fit when they didn't want to. Some of the results weren't pretty, with scrapes and scratches across the filed metal, but she got them to fit. She continued to answer any of Eri's questions as they went along, showing him what got screwed where, how tight to twist things, and how to modify things by trimming down and improving when something didn't fit. And likely also teaching him a few swear words he wouldn't have known unless he had ever frequented some of Sunberth's darker back alleys.