Nerds of a Feather Learn Together

[chefbayardee]

Who: Open to everyone!
When: Consistently in the evenings of May 9th-12th
Where: Curti Center Library, a larger conference room.
What: The howling hordes of airship pilot- and engineer-wannabes gather in one poor, poor place. And other nerds could probably study there, too.
Warnings/Notes: Feel free to write your own top-levels like with Makoto's birthday.

Wholly out of the blue, a message pings into your iMog slate, through the Kali Shashidhwaja Linkshell. When you open the notification, a horrible sound plays, and the text message's contents burst onto the screen in an explosion of confetti.

So I might've raided the Curti Center's library for everything on space, airships, piloting, and magitek. I also might have conquered conference room 3A in the library for the next few evenings. Come keep me company!

Please. It's quiet and lonely and I'm scared to leave by myself.
And I have cookies! ლ(❛ω❛ლ)

For whatever reason, you decide to head on over to the Curti Center, and you're met with a large conference room, with piles of books on the table divided by a few trays of cookies, and a few dry-erase boards because chalk is for bohemians. One, clearly at Hunk's corner of the table, has a sketch of an airship with arrows and chicken-scratched notes pointing to seemingly-random areas, as well as a blue-marker doodle of a bizarre creature circled multiple times and surrounded by question marks.

Another board across the room is partially taken up by a chart titled SKILLS! and broken into three columns: PILOT, MECHANIC, SCHOLAR. Hunk's name is written beneath each, but maybe you should write your own- there's a reason you're here, after all! And resting in the marker tray are about seven pamphlets on the Vaikuntha Pilot License Examination.

Oh, and there's a moogle sitting sternly upon the lectern next to the door, munching on a kupo nut as he gestures towards the bowl next to him, with "Donations" scribbled onto a piece of paper taped to the side.

Go wild, but shhhh! You're in a library!

( Potential baby top-level ideas include "asking your study neighbor what in the world something means," bellowing "HELLO YES I AM PILOT," and "I wandered in because free cookies but I don't want to be here and can't leave without causing a scene, help." )

Comments

[littlemhigan]

I know 'em, I just don't know how different it is here; If I use my usual recipe for steel, is it gonna be brittle? Will the mythril melt the way I'm used to it doing? Is the adamantite still a pain in the arse in every conceivable way? No way for me to know 'cept to try.

If ye can sort out the alchemy behind it, I'm not about to stop ye. In fact, the help would be most appreciated - I'm not exactly clever enough for that.

[chefbayardee]

[ Hunk can't help but grin as Castor leaves the metaphorical door open for him to help her out. Building. An. Airship!! ]

I'm pretty good at this sorta stuff, so I'd love to help you out! [ Nevermind that he knows nothing about some of the Vaikunthan metals. He can figure that out as he goes. ] So what're you used to? Y'know, how's mythril supposed to melt? What's so annoying about adamantite?

[ He looks genuinely excited and interested in what you have to say, Castor. He's your problem, now. ]

[littlemhigan]

[ Congrats Hunk, you get a laugh out of her. ]

What isn't annoying about adamantite? It's diffucult to find, dangerous to mine up and one of the fussiest buggers I've ever had the displeasure of working with. There's a right narrow window of temperature where it's workable - too cold and it's as hard as diamonds, too warm and it goes brittle and useless. Beautiful colour though - If I'd not seen the raw ore with my own eyes, I'd never believe it.


Mythril is a world easier to handle; behaves similarly to a standard steel alloy but looks far prettier - Goldsmiths would snatch up the ingots nearly as fast as someone can make 'em.

[chefbayardee]

[ He was ready to nod along and take mental notes as soon as Castor mentioned adamantite, but another word shoved all that aside. So instead of nodding, his eyes just got progressively larger. ]

Wait, you've gone mining? Like with dynamite. [ Hunk gives her a confused, scrutinizing look. See, melting and mixing metals was a little weird from his perspective. It was always far-removed from actually building and fixing crafts and constructs. But mining? ]

Or... even older... with a pickaxe? [ He almost sounds like he doesn't believe her. ]

[littlemhigan]

Pickaxe an' a sledgehammer. 'S a good way te make a livin' if ye can stand the labour.

Is dynamite some sort of explosive?

[chefbayardee]

Yeah, dynamite blows up! [ Hunk's eyes go wide, and an explosion of excitement seeps into his voice. He thinks it's cool that Castor can punch people and do things like mixing metals and mining, but... she'll probably get a kick out of this. ]

It's got some nitroglycerin and other stuff. You light the fuse, and when it runs out? Kaboom! [ The sound effect is emphasized, not shouted. This is still a library, after all. Have some explosive jazz hands for pizzazz, Castor. ]

[littlemhigan]

[ If nothing else, it gets a good laugh from her. ]

Sounds like an Alchemists' line o' work, an' a particularly indiscreet Alchemist at that. Biggest kabooms I've made've been when I was dabblin' in thaumaturgy.

[chefbayardee]

If you think dynamite's from an indiscreet Alchemist, grenades are worse. [ He clasps his hands together, like they're holding a baseball. ] Imagine something the size of a rock, except it explodes.

[ But then he smiles at Castor, a hint of recognition on his face. ] Thaumaturgy is that Black Magic stuff, right?

[littlemhigan]

Oh! We've got something alike to that. No fun to be on the wrong end of.

Aye! It's...less intensive than proper Black Magic - ain't many who can manage the proper stuff, and it's somethin' of a lost art in Eorzea.

[chefbayardee]

[ He's a little surprised that they have explosives and not pizza. Offended, almost, but he buries it. ]

Do Black Magic and Thaumaturgy work the same way? [ And here's Hunk, latching onto another opportunity to try and learn about magic. ] If- if you know enough about them, I mean. [ Is she one of the people who can manage Black Magic? That'd be cool! ]

[littlemhigan]

Sorta... Best I can tell anyways - I'm a bit useless with most magicks back home. Thaumaturgy uses the aether o' the caster to fuel the spells; ye get consistent and fairly safe results, but yer limited in how much aether ye can dump into any given spell.

Proper Black Magic channels aether from outside the body. Ye get some amazing destructive force outta the deal but if yer not careful, ye'll burn yerself up, and I do mean that literally.

[chefbayardee]

But... [ He tilts his head. Castor, how do magic work? ] If you're using aether from outside the body, how can you burn yourself up?

Why not just use aether from [ He gestures in some random direction. ] over there?

[littlemhigan]

Ye ever tried to add more water to a river? Eventually, it's like to completely flood over and ruin it all. Same idea; if ye don't know what te do with the aether yer taken, it's gonna flood over into ye and off ye go.

[chefbayardee]

[ He gasps. ] That's terrifying! [ And here's a small little whine for good measure. ] Why do people even do magic?!

[ Hunk kind of knows the answer- science can go horribly wrong if you mess it up. Magic's the same way. But fireballs are scarier. ]

[littlemhigan]

It ain't the worst if ye know what yer doin', even if ye never quite get so far as Black or White magic proper. Most mages ye find back home in Eorzea devote their whole lives te studyin' and practicin' it.

[chefbayardee]

Wait, so if you don't get to Black or White magic, what do you do? [ He raises an eyebrow, shelving the idea of asking how to spell Eorzea. ] Is that Gray magic?

...Or do people just spend their lives studying magic they don't get to use? [ Magic is weird, and he's starting to assume that it's just naturally convoluted and inefficient... ]

[littlemhigan]

Thaumaturgy or Conjury. Black an' White Magic was lost because overuse of 'em both caused a flood that wiped the Fifth Astral Era civilizations clean from the map. There's a school o' magic from up in the Highlands where I'm from called Red Magic that combines the two...it's right similar to the Red Magic here, but like everythin' else, it ain't quite the same.

closed out

[chefbayardee]

(( Assuming they just talk about magic and ways to blow stuff up, honestly. Maybe they eventually get back to stuff like metallurgy or airships.

Also, this is 10 tags for Hunk, 11 for Castor, for more sweet, sweet regain fodder. ))