faderift | buried deep within there's a human

WHO: Chloe Price and YOOOOOOOOOOOU
WHAT: Catch all for May
WHEN: ... May
WHERE: Anywhere and everywhere
NOTES: I feel like Chloe's a generic warning unto herself, but expect swears and innuendo and I'll warn in subject lines for anything that could be worse.

i. my mind's lost in bleak visions (the docks; cw for alcohol use)

When things went crazy at home, Chloe had always gone to the lighthouse. Here, the docks seemed like the closest thing. A place she could sit that was above the water enough to not worry about getting wet, but close enough to stare out over the waves and feel a little more grounded. She didn't know why water was so calming, but it was about all she had to grasp to and she wasn't in the mood to analyze it too deeply because of that.

Normal people might have gone to their friends to confide in the frustrations she had over everything; the growing resentment she felt for being othered as a Rifter, the anger at the propositions being made, the overwhelming exhaustion that came from being distrusted simply because she existed no matter what world she was in. Chloe, however, was taking comfort from a bottle because talking to people was just... hard. Old habits never disappeared no matter how much she tried to change her outlook on life.

So she was sitting near the edge of an empty dock, feet dangling off the edge, bottle in hand, staring out and waiting to see if anyone yelled at her to leave. She was content to stay there long as she was allowed, though - at least until it got too close to curfew and she'd have to trudge back to her room, but that was more than a ways off.

ii. limbs lost to dead weight stake (gallows)

When she wasn't drowning her sorrows down by the docks, Chloe was looking for distractions. She didn't have enough money for shopping distractions to say the least and she was avoiding any research work like the plague while she tried to sort out her emotions, which meant that she was instead looking for them in the only thing she had left; art and mechanics.

When focused on her art, Chloe could be found sitting just about anywhere, paper and charcoal in hands, or homemade paint beside her with a brush instead, making sure to try and capture sketches of the views around her, or pushing out sketches for art that could be used in protest, or if someone were to come by at just the right moment, they might catch her making portraits of a certain elf who had managed to capture her heart and went by the name of Fern.

And when focused on mechanics, she was sitting with a stored broken cart that she had procured months prior, scrap metal beside her, trying to see if she could make a simple engine from the spare parts. Nothing fancy, certainly not enough to make a car, but maybe enough to make pushing heavy loads a bit easier for one person who didn't have a lot of muscle. It was slow going, a good deal of failure and a lot of forehead wrinkling, but it at least kept her mind and her hands busy on something that didn't make her particularly enraged.

iii. take me out of this place i'm in (wild card)

[ if you wanna plot something, shoot me a message over at

keshet or just put up a starter of your choice if you like that organic rp life. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Swearing is a universal stress reliever, even among dragons. Of course, Alacruun tries not to indulge in public. It makes people think he's fallible and he simply can't have that, can he? He eyes the young woman and her mish-mash of assorted parts and a part of him wonders why she's going through all of the effort. His brow furrows and he cocks his head to one side, sounding rather genuinely confused.

"Why not simply use magic? It's available, after all."

Then again, using magic to move things was never really his specialty. But he's heard of artificers who can make rather wondrous creations and vehicles that move on their own.

"I'd have to rely on someone else if I used magic," she said simply. Asking other people for help wasn't her strongest suit, especially not without money to compensate them. Somehow suffering it out and building an engine was a better idea? She rubbed the back of her neck, smearing dust and dirt over the skin in the process.

She went back to balancing the pieces of the engine she was trying to put together as she spoke again. "Plus, it just kind of feels nice to work with parts again. Technology could use a boost around here anyway."

"Ah, I see. You're trying to be self-reliant. That is... admirable, although certainly the more difficult path," Alacruun hums quietly as he considers. He doesn't exactly admire that, but it is rather worthwhile, even from a human. People who expect others to do all of their work for them don't rank high in his book (then again, when he tricks people into doing things for him, that's different). He settles and leans over her for a moment.

He's not trying to loom, but he does anyway. Perks of being a qunari.

"I'm not familiar with the mechanical principles behind such engines; I was never much of an artificer. Ah... how is it meant to work?"

He is curious, though.

Admirable. She snorts. Chloe's never wanted to be one people admired in the first place, so having a word like that applied to her endeavors is awkward at best, even if she doesn't buy the choice in phrasing being an honest one thanks to that pause. "It's stupid. It's okay to use that instead. I get it." It's said mostly in jest, but she does realize how ridiculous it is to put effort into something that already has an easy fix.

Talking about engines, though. That's a lot simpler. Something that almost makes her perk up a bit.

"It's an external combustion engine. A steam one, specifically, since I figured that that'd be the easiest resource to guarantee being able to get my hands on. You heat water in this cylinder here -" She starts to gesture as she speaks, so he can follow along easily with visuals, "- and the steam pushes the pistons, which should then move this connector rod, which'll spin the gears, and should, theoretically, get the wheels to turn." She bit her lip as she sat back, wiping her dirty hands on a cloth that was strewn across her lap.

"That's the simple explanation anyway. It's mostly chemistry based - expansion principles, mostly, but figuring out how to not only get it to work but to do so without like... Exploding? Is proving trickier than I expected. But I've only ever known how to build this thing in theory before."

Oh. He actually finds all of that interesting to listen to. He's never been an artificer or an inventor, but he's naturally curious and keen when it comes to brand new information. Especially information that might end up being useful at some point in the future (even if he's not sure how this stuff about engines will ever be helpful). He leans in slightly, head cocked to one side and being very attentive. He looks genuinely interested, which is probably a plus.

"That seems... simple enough in concept," he replies as he tries to picture the engine in his mind's eyes. He'd never really thought of steam providing enough force to actually power anything, but natural philosophy had never been an area of interest. He furrows his brow after a moment. He might know a lot about magic, but he is woefully ignorant on this front.

"...but steam usually isn't all that powerful. It can make a kettle sing, but I've never heard of it moving anything on its own. How does one make it... push or pull something? Especially without magic."

Please don't laugh at him Chloe, you'll wound him.

She doesn't laugh, but it's not without a great deal of effort that probably shows on her face. She can't help it. Mostly because even after all these months, she's still baffled by just how little science has made it's way into so many worlds. Was magic really that limiting to it? Did it put discovering theories on hold because people didn't need to rely on nature to make things work or was it just that everyone was from so far back, that they hadn't had a chance to figure this stuff out?

Either way, she shakes her head. "Steam's extremely powerful when it's put under pressure. Like when you're boiling water in a covered pot and the lid starts to shake, the steam is obviously more powerful than when the pot is uncovered and the steam is allowed out into the air. So you use that pressure to make the engine move. It builds up in the container, it pushes the pistons forward which allows some of the pressure to release, it builds up again as the piston moves back into place, and lather, rinse, repeat." She paused before adding; "That's the... super, super simplified version. The rest would require way more lessons in physics and chemistry than I think I could brain right now."

"No, no, that makes sense... it's just something I've never really considered before. So you use it to build up enough pressure so it exerts force to move a lever or piston and turn a wheel..." He seems oddly fascinated by the idea.

"That seems... so simple when you explain it like that, but I don't think anyone I know would have thought up something like that. They would have just... enchanted a wagon or a cart to move on its own or by command. When you can do that sort of thing, you don't... think about the other possibilities."

He trails off for a moment, a pair of fingers pressed thoughtfully to his chin.

"I suppose it's a bit like a water wheel in some respects; you use an existing force to push or pull something, which acts on another thing and so on and son, until you get the desired effect. Truly, your world sounds fascinating. Do all vehicles there use this... sort of engine to move about?"

He's imagining a world full of powered wagons with large engines strapped in back.

buried deep within there's a human

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apologies for the late

No worries!