thebrigantine_tlv | An Unsuccessful Experiment

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An Unsuccessful Experiment

Who: Sento Kiryu and you!
What: Sento tangles with trying to get the ship to give him something simple. It doesn't go according to plan.
Where: All over.
When: A couple of days after Jamil's Overblot fiasco.
Warnings: Cow tools.

[A - Rooms]
Look, Sento is a physicist. A scientist. A tinkerer. He has been trying to scrape together something resembling a lab with salvage from the nets, but it's not going well. He's got materials, but these materials need things so he can put them to use. He needs tools.

He's got his door open to get a little fresh air in there (also it's not like there are any locks in the damn place and he'd like to keep an eye on things), and he's been meditating in frustration. And at last, the ship has been responded, he's been granted tools. Some sort of tools. "What the hell are those?" He sounds aggrieved as he examines his...whatever-they-ares. He lacks any sort of context for this whatsoever and his frustration is both audible and palpable. The only thing stopping him from throwing

[B - All Over]
There's only one way to try to identify these items--by politely accosting random people with an "Excuse me! Do you know what this is?"

Maybe he'll start making up answers of his own if no one knows what the weird things are. He hasn't decided yet. He doesn't like it here, he's a little punchy, an outright load of bullshit would be one of the least harmful ways to vent that.

It's not like he thinks the items are dangrous, anyway.

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Sweeney's wandering, unsure of where he's going. At least where he's meant to be going. But in the end, it hardly matters, right? It doesn't matter where one is physically, as long as they're in the right place mentally. And he's looking for a way out, even if it's just into torture. That's at least a familiar place. The odds are stacked in it's favor, but there's still a chance he might see her. She's not on this fucking boat, and he'll never get off of it, so he has to make do as best he can.

He's meandering, smoking his ceramic pipe. Whatever is in it is odd; not tobacco or pot or anything likely to be familiar. Sweet on the front end and bitter on the back, it's all together strange.

At the man's approach, Sweeney straightens, a deep crease setting into his brow. There's a flicker of confusion. He isn't sure if he recognizes the stranger, or if he's meant to. For a moment, he thinks he does, but then the thought's gone again. In the end, he accepts that even if he does know him, he doesn't in the moment. His eyes dip to the tool in question. Sweeney studies it, and it takes him too long to answer.

"Where'd ya find it?" he asks, his gruff Irish accent a touch muddled. Sweeney doesn't seem drunk otherwise, which is unusual enough on its own.

"I tried meditating," Sento says wryly. "Meditating about how nice it would be to have a decent set of tools around here." There is a broad gesture at the weird twisted item he's holding. "This was the result." Hell, maybe a guy who was on something that led to an altered state of consciousness would have some insight on what the hell this thing was.

The meditating thing seems to be hit or miss, but as of late there's been some hitting, which had provided him what's currently in his pipe. Sweeney sucks his tongue over his teeth.

"What kinda tools were ya lookin' for?" Wanting and needing are far different birds.

There is a dramatic and put-upon sigh. "Something useful. Normal. Screwdrivers, wrenches, a soldering iron...that sort of thing."

Sweeney goes quiet, his brow lowering in thought while his gaze drifts to the side. He's trying to remember, but it's been a while. After a few seconds, he reaches into the interior of his denim jacket and produces a screwdriver. It's clearly older, both in design and wear. He'd gotten it in Flotilla, and pirate towns don't tend towards fancy high-tech shit, even though that's what he'd been salvaging for.

His eyes return to the man.

"Like this?"

"Yes." Hot damn, an actual screwdriver. "I don't suppose you'd be up for a trade, but could I borrow that? Just for a couple of hours."

That's promising at least. Fuck, if only he could come by a proper dish of cream. He'll have to make due.

"Either's an option. What's it worth ta ya?" Sweeney knows he needs to get ahead of the next bit; he can't imagine the man has experience with faeries.

"It ain't 'bout what I want or what I say it costs," he clarifies. "It's 'bout the value you put on it. What ya'll sacrifice ta have it." There's no threat or ominous nature to the words, Sweeney's just doing his best to explain how this works.

Sento scratches his head. Faeries are the last thing on his mind. He doesn't have any big, important plans for the screwdriver...and he also doesn't have much to barter with. "I've got a remarkable assortment of junk scavenged from the nets, if any of it would be to your liking. I might be able to turn some of it into something else with a tool, but there are other bits that might be doomed to remain junk forever." There's a shrug. "Or I could do you a favor in exchange, if that works for you."

It isn't about his liking. Sweeney does his best to avoid pinching his nose and noting how that part had already been covered. Instead, he diverts to the other offer and considers it. He hates bartering, but sometimes there's nothing to be done for it.

"How 'bout three secrets, an' it's yers?" Seems valuable enough for something so apparently craved.

"Somethin' private 'nough that ya haven't confessed it ta more than one other person." Defining words like 'secret' is always tricky.

Sento's eyebrows shoot up. "That's a little personal for just a screwdriver, isn't it?" And there's a slight frown. "And you don't know me at all--for all you'd know, I could be the sort to make something up."

His gaze slips upward for a moment, reflecting on the man's words.

"Both are true 'nough," he concedes, but there's obviously more to the point.

"Thing is...this place dunn't hinder my magic like the last one did. An' faerie Contracts are bindin', so if ya agree, ya hav'ta honor it."

To be fair, Sweeney isn't certain that's true here, but he has no reason to believe it isn't, either. Everything else seems to be working as it used to, back before things went to shit.

"You can always just ask the Deacon again," he offers, perfectly content to keep his goods.

"Or make a different Offerin'." In the end, Sweeney was just trying to be helpful, given the man's clear inexperience with the process.

"So what are you going to do with the secrets once you have them?" Sento's not really sure he believes in magic, and given that everyone aboard this entire ship has been weird, he does find himself thinking this guy isn't playing with a full deck. "And would it count if there were other people who witnessed the secret but aren't here to say anything anyway?"

Sweeney takes a slow breath in consideration.

"To the latter, that'll do just fine. An' to the former, I'll Have them." There's weight in the word. That's the point, after all. The man gives up the custody; he doesn't get to be involved with their application.

"Does this change anything in the way I recall or am affected by the secrets?" This is all just weird and Sento is considering just using his useless tools on each other in order to fashion a rudimentary screwdriver. Or trying to scrounge from the nets and get lucky.

Hartley's arm-deep in trying to free a delicate piece of machinery he's spotted from a complicated root system when some idiot comes running up to him. He scowls, but he can't pull his arm free without some maneuvering and isn't interested in dislocating his wrist today.

"Why don't you try someone who's in the same stratosphere of thought as you?" he snaps, focused on retrieving the circuitboard.

"I've yet to find someone who might fit the bill--" oh, two can be a bit grumpy "--so you'll have to do." Sento shrugs. "Besides, for all I know, this cursed item might be useful somewhere in the realm of whatever it is you're doing."

He scoffs, rolling his eyes as he works his arm further in.

"Not likely. You got that from the Deacon? He might as well have handed you a coupon to the Playskool College of Engineering and Tinkertoys."

Hartley gasps suddenly as something gives way and pulls out a crusty old disk drive, triumphant.

"Now you're just giving him too much credit." Sento is reasonably certain that plastic tools for toddlers would still be identifiable as tools of a sort. What he has is even more useless.

The disk drive is perhaps more interesting. "I'll be surprised if it even runs."

"Don't worry, I'll get it to run." He says with all the confidence of a Grade A asshole.

"Stop bothering me and go play with your intellectual equals. I'm sure I saw a few teenagers running around."

Consider Sento's feathers completely ruffled--he is usually the one being the overconfident asshole, thank you very much. Is this some sort of karmic retribution? This has got to be some sort of karmic retribution. "I think not. The hard drive's more interesting than anything else on this godforsaken boat."

He is a very bored physicist, and now he's determined to be annoying. Surely this will end well.

"The hard drive is mine. I found it." He retorts, defensive, fingers clenching around it.

"Go piss up someone else's tree."

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An Unsuccessful Experiment

The Halls

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