Fisher
New Member
Tinkering
Raury Feybrand
WC: 1562
Raury Feybrand
WC: 1562
“Fuck.” Raury muttered.
He had tried the same bit of wiring going on damn near fifteen times, all of which ended in failure. Wires aren’t meant to cross that way. And they were all so small. The drinking probably didn’t help, but damned if he was going to stop that for any reasonable amount of time. That would just be silly. A Raury without drink is hardly a Raury, is it? And before you answer yourself on that thought, the answer is no. It isn’t a Raury at all. He just needed to relax a bit. Maybe get some tweezers.
The drunk was finding turning his love of tinkering into an actual viable talent considerably more challenging than anticipated. The man had some skill, to be sure. But he seemed to lack some measure of finesse. All in time, he figured. It would all come in time.
“Fuuuuucking fuck fuck!” Another failure. He was no good at patience. “Fuckety fucking fuck fffffrickfuck!”
He abruptly took to his feet, needing a moment away from his makeshift workbench. Couldn’t do much pacing, what with all of these empty bottles and flasks, to which a myriad of cylinders, tubes wires and thingamabobers had recently been added. The place was a mess. And for the first time in his memory, the clutter was bugging him.
He sighed, stepping over a particularly heaping mass of glass and circuitry. “Guess I’ll need’ta do somethin’ ‘bout all this. Eventually.”
He’d put it on his to do list. Right behind nap thirty four. Priorities.
Leaning against the wall nearest his door, he stared at the dragon on his workbench. Not a literal dragon, mind. That would be silly. More of a figurative dragon. Figuratively kicking his ass in the dexterity department. He wasn’t sure he would ever get those damn wires right. But damned if he was going to give up. This break was more of a temporary tactical retreat. It wouldn’t do to smash the entire project in a short blip of rage.
The stability of the wall was nice. Raury closed his eyes, listening to the signs of life outside of his quarters. The general hustle and bustle of the Fifth. People going here and there. Dinner plans, training schedules. Sanity. Sweet, sweet sanity. So boring. The soft pop of a cork. A drink to his lips. A more entertaining form of sanity. Delicious wine.
The Founder was happy in the Fifth, and the folk were nice. His Captain was a good man. But Raury had found himself uncharacteristically antisocial as of late. Since Dunan. Nothing particularly breathtaking had occurred to him in that incident, but it seemed to have affected him oddly, nonetheless. Something that had been building for quite some time, he supposed.
Another glance at the dragon on the bench.
“Yeh, I see ya, fuckass.” The drunk brushed aside a swath of unruly hair. “I’ll get ya yet.”
Enough of a break. Gathering his wits, he stepped away from the wall and made back for the table. If he could just get this right. It would be...well, it’d be interesting. And a possible major asset. Plus, despite his frequent fits of frustration, the redhead was genuinely enjoying this whole thing. Doing something. Kept him busy. Less lazy. More focused. And damned be known he could use a bit more focus.
Done with bein useless.
The thought conjured a hulk in his mind. Unmoving and frustratingly patient. To a fault, he would say. That damned walking fortress. Raury could have been helping people. Some people just can’t be moved. Except by bolts of lightning, apparently.
Back at the table, he readied his hands for the task. A series of funky fresh hand motions designed to increase blood flow and flexibility. He saw it in some earth magazine on a recent trip. Reading magazines wasn’t part of the mission, but damnit. If a thing catches a fellows eye. Ya gotta pursue. The article had been meant for less...sterile activities. How to Please Your Man, or some such.
Raury cleared his throat awkwardly. Well, the principles were the same. Sort of. Shut up.
Ready for another go, he carefully and slowly reached down into the circuitry and daintily grasped a pair of wires with his thumb and index finger.
“Careful now, mate, there’s a beaut.” He muttered.
Holding his breath, the Founder began to cross the wires, aiming them toward their respective plugins. He began the motion multiple times, returning his hands to the start position repeatedly any time he felt failure was imminent.
“Oi, oi, calm’er down.” He breathed, his hands beginning to shake. He wouldn’t be able to keep this up. Holding the motion was too taxing.
Now or never, damnit.
Exhaling sharply, he pushed the wires into place, setting them in and hearing a surprising ‘click’ as they hit the home position. He had done it. Finally.
“Oho, damn!”
His excitement was cut short as the drunk abruptly felt some of his own power shoot into the completed apparatus. It was like something sucking on your finger. Except sub finger for one’s own life force. It was hella unsettling, and the drunk jerked his hand away quickly.
“Well!” He exclaimed. “That was pretty creeps!”
Settling back in his chair, he took a long pull from his gourd while he studied the glove. It was technically working as intended. Well, hopefully. The glove was designed to hold a portion of his reiatsu in itself, reserving it for a use he had yet to determine. Just a sort of curiosity, thus far. The concern was on how much it was going to suck up. That’d be a hell of a way to go, sucked dry by his first major invention. What a headliner. He hadn’t intended to make a reiatsu black hole. And maybe he hadn’t. There were limiters in place, it was just a question of whether they were working. And finding out required a test subject.
Squirrels.
The thought was nuts, and he knew it. Imagine. A glove on a squirrel. Squirrels don’t wear gloves. Especially human sized ones. Ludacris. Not to mention he’d feel bad if the glove sucked some critter dry. Poor thing. Poor, poor, ludacris thing. He knocked back a large portion of his gourd and tossed it aside.
“Whelp!” He exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Nae sense in leavin’ it ta someone else! I’m the papa, so I’ll giv’er a go.”
Taking a deep breath, he pulled the glove on without thinking about it any further. Like tearing off a band aid. A band aid that could potentially kill him.
That unsettling sensation came to him again, like someone was eating a part of himself. The glove pulled some of his power free, taking it into itself. Just before panic set in, something akin to an egg timer went off, the ding filling the room and sounding comically out of place. A dull blue light winked into life on the palm of the glove, indicating a full capacity.
He stared, still a bit unsettled and bewildered, but a grin creeping into place.
“Oi, oi, lookit’cha mate, all blinkin’ and lights an’ ready ta go!” The grin cracked further into a full smile. His glee quickly transformed into a wild and impromptu dance about his trash hoard, clapping and hollering all the way.
Once the initial excitement wore off, tempered by a tumble facilitated by a wayward wine gourd, the drunk settled in to decide where to go with it now. It had his power. Not a load, apparently. The glove limiters seemed to reach capacity with a relatively small portion of his strength. So, how to apply?
He idly scratched at his beard, not sure how to move forward. He could...well. There was a ‘release’ function. But just throwing the power out of the glove had...unknown effects. Would it just harmlessly whoosh out? Whoosh back into him? Whoosh into the air? Whoosha whoosey whoosh? Explode out of the glove? The possibilities jumbled his mind, and he wasn’t one to leave so many possibilities unanswered. Cluttered his head. So, fuck it.
“Fuck it.” He activated the release function. It went as one would probably expect.
With a quite noisy crack, the reiatsu blew out of the glove, and upon contacting the outside air, forcibly exploded outward from his palm. Trash and general debris blew outward through the shiny new hole in his wall as he hit the floor, unprepared for the kick of his new toy.
Flat on his ass and head to the floor, Raury heard the shocked yelling of his division mates as they cluttered his door inquiring as to the source of the noise and mess.
“I’ll be damned!” He yelled, gaining a sitting position. He studied the glove, watching with interest as the sensation of draining returned, and the blue light winked back on. He ignored the voices at the door, too absorbed in the events to really notice.
“Needs some work...an’ a wide berth. But the damn thing works.”
A new set of tests were in order. So much to do. This completion opened up so many possibilities. He would have a lot less free time now. Or was it still free time? Still technically a hobby. But a useful one.
He would have to remove a few naps from his schedule.