when will it start to almost break you

[caballero]

Who: Seoraj & Tom who is really Bruce.
What: Nerdings.
Where: A stelanmancy repository in Flag Hill.
When: ~Today.
Notes: Wildly making shit up Worldbuilding.
Warnings: TBA, don't really expect any though.

It's been less than a week since he's found work, and only a meager few days since his new co-workers have discovered his affinity for devices and materials beyond the ken of Baedal's technology. Familiarity with these things are common - especially in the newly chosen - but proficiency to his degree is rare, and even rarer to find in someone looking for work in the engineering field. So it's no surprise that one of the first assignments he's given is to go into a highly secure facility and dig through looking for ultra-rare materials. He actually knows what they are, who cares who he is or where he's from.

Not all stelanmancy facilities are the same, he's been told; in a way they're like gardens. The techniques and magics that work for some experts don't work with others, and the lay of the land always plays into it, as well. The Flag Hill center is an old round wooden building that looks low and unassuming from outside. Within there lies sights like Bruce has never seen: pools of captive fog, some encased in glass, some left to broil as thaumaturgists pick through like great crane-birds wearing plague masks to prevent them from the dream sickness. The man who shows him through the dark wooded halls tells him about the lake in the back, the size of an Olympic pool, through which buildings are pulled and then hovered away with by mages.

Walking across planks of petrified wood in between mirrored islands, Bruce crouches down to watch as a witch with pointed teeth and a friendly smiles coaxes a parasol and necklace made of gold coins into existence.

It's incredible.

An hour later, he's sitting on the floor of an overhang outside what passes for an office in here (open, lattice-worked bungalows built into the walls, looking out over the glass-covered pools), sorting through bits and pieces of metal spilled out onto the wooden surface, speaking in low tones about what's what. The stelanmancer sitting with him listens raptly, being from a time long before factory-processed metals.

Comments

[caballero]

Sometimes it's easier for him to get things out that way - roundabout, edging shy of the heart of it. He's a professional on being blunt and dismissive, but subjects like this are difficult for him to tackle with any brevity. His lack of innate understanding of spirituality leaves him unable to articulate his thoughts very well, besides 'I don't get it.'

"I don't mind it, here."

[serjeant]

"In Arum, our business is war," Seoraj says, thoughtfully, and he's taking a roundabout way to his own point this time, too. "Not our own; we do our politics around a table, that's as is." It's also not the popular perception of how they work, but they don't tend to fuss too much about what foreigners think about them. Do said foreigners have money? Are they going to give their money to the Arums? The interest tends to end there, since they're not going to take problem-solving advice from the people who hire them.

"No, but, we fight for other people. They'll hire a clan, and maybe their enemy hires another clan, and we do all the hard parts for them." This explains a lot of how Seoraj interacts with people; probably more than he realizes. "It's our trade, it's what we are. Soldiers, none better in any land we know. But I don't often get to visit cities where I can leave my axe where it is."

He tosses and catches the aluminium bracelet. "It's different." And he likes it.

[caballero]

It's... interesting, to think of war and soldiering in that respect; it opens a lot of doors for potential questions, if he was inclined to ask. Could factions in his home fight wars without the Arum? Would going into another line of work entirely eliminate needless bloodshed? (He's not ignorant enough to think so, not really.)

It explains some things about Seoraj, anyway.

Whatever Bruce might have said in response is lost when Lilura returns and cheerfully announces that they're to be let into the back holding area now - there's probably some of the wiring Tom is looking for. His friend is free to come with, of course, since they're both in the market for metal. That odd semi-talkative mood evaporates and Bruce settles back into being quiet and professional like pulling on another coat, and he walks along with the stelanmancer, easy.