Between the Conception and the Creation (Enigma)

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Enigma"]

Alchemists were hard to come by these days, especially since the lion's share of AEL's Forcers had wound up dead or amnesiac. The enigmatic contact she'd made on a starliner, overlooking the Flamewind of Oseon, had turned out to be a Force-user with a background in mentalism and, to some extent, alchemy. Several weeks of work had gleaned a few leftovers from the wiped minds of the AEL staff alchemists. When coupled with training and resources from other directions, AEL had a team again. Nothing like the legions of alchemists that had mass-produced mild alchemies for the galaxy, true, but AEL still had a niche. New products were in the works, in a limited sense, and the mysterious Miss Vantai had been entrusted with spearheading one of those new products. She'd been given free creative rein, so far as she understood that she wasn't expected to create alchemical garments in the same order of magnitude as the company's former successes.

This visit was in the nature of a checkup. Selka was intensely interested -- vitally, one might say -- in learning what Vantai was working on.

Apart from her duckface.

 

[Onrai]

Vanessa Vantai's own development had proceeded along rather haltingly - overlooking the AEL's previous product line indicated that Rave had been a very busy woman. Developing new pieces of clothing with functionality would prove to be a challenge - but a few concepts had come to her attention, and she had been working on the designs for some of them in question. Functionality was certainly the name of the game - new alchemical garments that would be more than capable of having the same level of usage as older products. And when she heard that Selka was on her way to further examine what she had been working on, well... It was good timing.

At least she wasn't a hairy Sith Lord in disguise or anything.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Enigma"]

The R&D lab on Kyrikal Seventeen, a desert mining world in Wild Space, was hot and dry in defiance of both air conditioners and humidifiers. Selka had spent enough time here that she shouldn't have minded, but she'd spent much more time on Manaan. Enough said.

"Afternoon, Miss Vantai," she said, walking into the alchemy/leatherwork lab as if she owned the place. "I hope Kyrikal is treating you well?" She scanned the workshop visually, taking in the pleasing signs of business returning to normal. Well, as normal as things would ever be for AEI with Rave Merrill and her teachings gone. Though she hadn't explicitly told Vantai this, a good portion of AEI's former products simply couldn't be replicated or matched anymore. Not yet, anyway. With enough labs and contract alchemists like this, and enough of AEI's proprietary reagents in storage, that might change in time.

"So -- you've had a good few weeks to go from concept to prototype, and develop new concepts. Show me some things you're working on."

 

[Onrai]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

"Scorching. If I was a Zelosian, I'd probably have shriveled up and died by now." She smiled, moving over towards a trio of shrouded objects. "I suppose the best is to start with number one." She nodded, removing the shroud from the first set of objects - what appeared to be a set of gauze gloves next to finger-formed terentatek leather gloves. They appeared to be quite standard... "These are nullifier gloves, designed for the Teras Kasi specialist in particular. While they appear to be normal alchemized gloves, they're actually coated with a massive amount of pelko bug stingers. Those gauze gloves have been impregnated with an antivenom that activates upon contact with the stinger in question, and are to be put on first before putting the nullifier gloves on, preventing accidental disabling of the appendages in question. They are not marked as dangerous, and any fool who tries to put them on the normal way will lose all ability to grab... Well, anything."

She smiled, waiting to see Selka's reaction to this sort of construct.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Enigma"]

Selka's eyebrows rose. "Interesting. So brush your hands against any part of your body that isn't armored, and..." She chuckled. "All right, then. Marketing will have their work cut out for them. Now, technically speaking...these stingers are single-use, yes? Or at least limited-use? Like on a Sith training sabre? They're not still alive in some sense, are they? My other major question is...what about skin irritation? If the gauze is just an antivenin rather than something that physically or chemically blocks the stingers from penetrating skin, isn't the wearer getting physically hit by hundreds of stingers, even if the venom is inactive? Sounds like a recipe for having lots of little stinger bits in your hands, even if you do everything right."

 

[Onrai]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

"They have a limited capability for causing damage over time, seeing as the stingers will run out of poison eventually, not being alive. As for the undergloves - I suppose those could be given a chemical depilatory bath, making sure that the stingers wouldn't be able to pierce the skin." She nodded. "We could always make a machine to put them on and off someone's hands, but that would be more costly. Would remove the need for an underlayer, though."

Refinement would certainly be needed, but the idea did seem sound.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Enigma"]

Selka tapped her chin in thought. "Gives the marketing people something to do, anyway. 'Wrap your hands in chemicals to keep from getting stung into a heart attack by your own gloves.' Alchemical gloves with stingers on the outside should sell fine, and it's possible we could look into stingers on the inside as an optional feature. As for the alchemical nature of the gloves -- what sort of hide are you working with? Tikulini, I presume? Standard proprietary-reagent treatment to keep the leather lightsabre-proof after death and processing? Is any of that giving you any trouble? With our resources, it's fairly straightforward for a good to midgrade alchemist, with the proper training and experience."

She moved on to another part of the workshop. "What other concepts are you looking at?"

 

[Onrai]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

"I'm not a hundred percent sure as to why we'd need to put stingers inside the gloves - the depilatory chemical would likely erode them until they were no longer effective." She sighed, looking the gloves over. "Tikulini hide for the production iteration. As this is merely the proof-of-concept item, it was made of terentatek leather to allow for less of the more valuable materials to be utilized. We have tested the pelko stingers' impregnation into tikulini hide, and it will work identically to this." To the latter comment, she slightly shook her head. "No trouble at all. The process is quite simple, and though alchemy is only my second strongest suit, it's performing quite well, if I may say so myself."

It really was easy to work with. As much as she despised Rave, what she had made was excellent. "If you'll lift that cover up for me, Miss Ventus..."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Enigma"]

Selka massaged the bridge of her nose in a vain attempt to stave off an incipient headache. "All right, let's move on." She flicked her wrist, and the cover sheet trembled, then peeled itself up in what felt like an inexpert telekinetic grip. So far as pretty much anyone knew, she was little stronger than she'd been the day she washed out of AgriCorps for being weak in the Force. The cover peeled away, presenting something made primarily of leather, and possibly polished horn.

"All right, prototype number two. Explain for me what I'm looking at, if you don't mind. And don't be afraid to get technical; my Force strength may be nothing special, but I've been educated fairly well."

 

[Onrai]

The item in question appeared to be a leather helmet with two long horns that curved downward, meeting about three or four inches apart in front of the mouth of the wearer, assuming they were human. Engraved into the horns were very thin diatium wires that spiraled down towards the tip, stopping just before the very end of the horns. She paused, smirking and pondering over the situation. "Well... Let's see. The helmet here has an energy crystal serving as a power source at the back. It sends an electrical current that arcs between these two horns, modulated in such a way that when the wearer blows, a massive amount of electricity will be unleashed directly in front of them. It's certainly functional, though I'd rather not see it tested on someone."

After all, it brought back the memories of when Ashin had almost fried her.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Enigma"]

Selka took the helmet gingerly. "When someone...blows? Marketing will have a field day with that. That's a lot of energy to go into something that gives you mandibles and might go off if you get the wind knocked out of you, or a stiff breeze comes up. Now, if you apply this concept to something like...a spiked glove or gauntlet, maybe an elite alchemical version of shockboxing gloves, then I could see that getting traction. As it stands, though, our clientele wants a certain level of comfort with their oddness. Our products are innovative, but they also have to be intuitive. This is also far too powerful for our staff alchemists to produce more than a handful of times, and that won't keep the lights on. Let's move on. What else have you been working on -- not just prototypes, but concepts?"

 

[Onrai]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

"Well..." She paused, reaching for one other cover. "There's one other thing I have here." She removed the cloth covering a lower armband which was only partially complete, along with a pair of cylindrical, almost lightsaber-shaped objects. As it was incomplete, there was a drawing to showcase what the finished product looked like. The two cylindrical objects were attached to the wrist a modest distance away through the use of small connectors that appeared to be able to rotate inward and outward, as well as up and down. "This is a device designed for target nullification. A microcomputer, in concert with several sensors, aim a pair of multi-watt laser beams directly into the eyes of the target, searing their retinas and utterly disabling them. Being that the lasers are in fact lasers, and not plasma-based weapons, they cannot be blocked by a lightsaber. One of these could prove very useful against Jedi, Sith, or really any sort of Force User."

At least, she figured such was the case. Its noiselessness and potency up to around fifty kilometers would certainly prove useful to the user.