Mother of Invention - Siyu and Mira pt 1 & 2

Participants

• Mirana
• Siyu

Date

28/3/477

Log

Sitting back in a bench, her kits long since put to bed, Mirana works with a peice of parchment, very carefully writing something out in the lamp lights of the late night market. She is cautious with her hand, not to put too much stress on the paper, nor hold the quill too tightly, her hand wrapped up a bit with bandages.

Siyu smiles a little, he swishes his wide hips around, and he'll rock back and forth, "Hello there Lady Mirana..." he chitters and walks up to you. "How are you doing, well I hope, feeling stronger after the meal?" he inquires.

Mirana looks up and catches Siyu walking up, giving a great smile, "Indeed! I was doing some thinking after I had to leave. that idea about making it easier to scribe something out. Now, why I don't think you'll be getting magic quills to write all on their own anytime soon, what if there was a good way to press an already written page to another page without making all the ink run?" She asks. She holds up a few failed attempts, "I thought about it, using some fire math, water math, to try and control the consistancy of the ink, but, well, didn't work out so well.

Siyu blinks a little bit, "Not writing..." he considers, "Copying a book without scribing it..." he says the concept aloud and he considers. He takes a look down at the drawings and he'll set next to Mirana, hip to hip, warmth to warmth looking at it. His gloved hands will flip through the pages Mirana has scribed, looking over the idea.

The originals look slightly sloppy, but that is easily from having a bum hand, but the attempts to press the ink over onto the next page look shooty and unreadable. Mirana sighs a bit, "Not writing it at all? Making a new copy of it without scribing? How would you go about that Siyu sweetie? Right now you are making about as much sense as Flora." She says, giving a queer smile. "If the page wasn't scribed, how would you get words on it at all?" She asks. She is very very warm, being a pheonix, she gave off a very subtle heat, not enough to push the chill away on a winters day, but enough to make it known.

Siyu bristles at the mention of Flora, "I'm not addled and working with dark magic..." is his retort. He considers the idea, "Not scribbed, not scribbed. Ink flows from a nib, the well of the nib..." he considers and looks ad the drawings. The smearing of ink, "You can't use paper. No no...you need somthign stiff somthing soft like..." he stares a bit at it, "Copper..." he quickly darts up, running to his nearby wagon since we're in the market to quickly grab a copper sheet. He'll move over with you, and lay out the copper sheet and the inscribed quill. If we cut it into the metal...could the ink transfer cleanly?"

Mirana looks at you for a bit, then at the copper you bring over. She runs a hand over it softly, "Cut into it? Oh! I see... humm.. what about if..." She thinks it over, "Well, I have one of my families rings, and when I want to make something offical, it is as simple as press the ring to it in wax? Could something similar also be done? This is a good idea however, just... humm.." she thinks it over some more.

Siyu considers and he looks at it, "It's just copper I can cut into it with a scribing pen, it's steel, easily..." he begins to make any sort of...well some words some letters some patterns, he's cutting INTO the coper, making it like an inscribed run as he's trained. He finishes up ill the whole sheet is cut. He'll set it down, "So now we apply ink to it right? And see if it'll press and take..." he lets yo uthink about it, and he'll try to actally press a paper and some ink and see how it works.

Mirana pondering a bit more, MIra nods, "That is one way that might work, do you have a regular inkwell or such handy though? I just have my earth mathed quill, which is part of what I was thinking, if we made something press down from the top, onto something that was already inked, it wouldn't be that hard to magic it to make the ink itself." She says, "Like when you press your knee down into the dirt, your leggings will get a sort of pattern on them."

Siyu thinks a bit from the top..." he looks at the sheet laying on top of the copper. "I...hm..." he considers and pulls it back, it's just covered in in, no inscription upon it just black ink "I'll go fetch and inkwell and a second sheet...anything else you think we need?" he inquires as he'll go to get both, one of his inkwells since he has one ofr his records, and another copper sheet. His original idea not working, listening to Mirana and seeing what second idea she wants.

Mirana nods a bit, "Well, like I was trying to explain a bit Sweetie, here, let me show you." she asys, taking the ink well, she looks at Siyu's fingers, being a mousey type, much less fur on them then her own hand. "I saw one of my fellow scribes do this, such a cute little mouse he is." she says, "He got the ink all over his hands, and whenever he touched he left ink prints, but if you looked close," she says, pressing a piece of parchment carefully and slowly to Siyu's finger, "he left little lines and such all over the place in the ink. Could we do the same thing with letters?" She asks.

Siyu has removed his gloves, after all hes' dealing with ink, his own small hands are calloused, rough and with scars, he lets yo utake his fingers and he watchs, turning a bit pink, "Cute mous hm?" he inquires and he'll watch as the ripple patterns of his fingers, the scars, the callouses will slowly show up upon the parchment. He looks at his fingers and he stares at it, "Raised...they're raised, ridges...upon my fingers..." he nods and stares at them. The raised prints, push to the paper and leave the imprint...."

Mirana smiles and nods to Siyu! "Yes, they are. Very tiny, you don't notice them until you really look." She says, giggling a bit after, "But you do notice when someone starts leaving the marks wherever he puts his hands! He should have had gloves on too." She says. "Well, what do you think? Do you think something like that could happen?" She asks. A yawn graces her though, "It is getting very late Siyu, but I wanted to work on this, I couldn't keep the idea back really." She says.

Siyu thinks thinks thinks, he looks at the copper seat, "So if that doesn't work...we need somthing to impress the ridges, somthing to make ridges in it..." he considers and goes to find a lead sheet and a hammer. The failed copper sheet he takes and he lays the lead sheat over it. "So it needs to be RASIED" he says again and looks to miran and begins to start beating the lead sheet into the copper one, "S we take the soft metal and we form the ridges..." he pulls the head sheet off, leaving a positive of the sheets negative. "And then we try the same thing. Press the ink to the sheet and then the paper." he tries it.

Mirana smiles and nods, watching Siyu work, smiling about it, "Ok, you have a good idea?" She says, "I have to admit, other then pounding out armor and swords, I've never really worked with metel in such a way." She finishes. Taking the ink well she puts it over the raised parts, putting a piece of parchment over it, "Now.. umm.. how do we push down on-" a long yawn, "Oh, excuse me, how do we push it down?" watching as Siyu does his work, but the end result is still a bit sloopy, "Humm... well, it is late sweetie, what do you think about trying some more tomorrow if we both have time? I mean, this looks like it could work once we get it figured out." She says.

Siyu nods his head and he looks at the sheet of lead, "And lead is fragile, it's very easy to compress and ruin the crispness of an image, it's not going to..." he huffs, "It's not going to last long it's lead..." he thinks about that, the core of an idea there, but the application not

Mirana nods a bit to that and yawns again, "Oh goodness, sweetie, I have to get to bed. If you want to keep working on this, please feel free, but maybe some sleep will help me out." She says, leaning over and down to Siyu to take, and give, a hug. "If you can though, sleep too, this will wait for us, no need to rush, we should do it all correctly the first time, if we can." She says, giving a slight kiss to Siyu's forehead before standing and carefully pacing away... she was defenately getting a small bit chubbier.

Siyu leans up and squeezes back in teh hug, "mmm, kiss your kits for me, and be well." he mummers a little bit, he offers just a faint little clean rub to the belly, sjmiling still and chittering. He'll give a gentle nd of his head, "I'll think about it, I'll think and work upon it..."

Quite a few days after their first talks, Mirana was once more in the marketplace. She pats on the slight swell of her middle, wondering a moment, but then getting back to the parchments she was working on. There were some good ideas there, some thoughts. Mostly work on what materials to use. Marble, plain stone, wood, metel? She kicks her feet a little as she looks over what she has in the bright sunlight.

Siyu steps out from the back of his wagon, into his work shop area. He's been busy as well, half of an idea has collacesed into a full one. He's dressed in shop leathers, sturdy cloths for working on metal and in the heat. He looks around and spots...Mirana! "Lady Solacious!" he chitters happily and waves towards her, "Just who I wanted to see! Oh, please, come over, I have some...interesting things to show you!" his eyes bright behind the glasses with some excitment.

Mirana looks over as she hears someone using a familar title. She shakes her head a moment, it could be someone addressing her mother, her aunt, please let it be her aunt. She looks around after though, spotting Siyu as he waves. A sigh, standing up, she guesses that it was the right way to do things really. Waling over she looks him over, "Hello Siyu, how are you? You have something to show?" she asks, movements a bit slow, and she looks a pinch tired.

Siyu grins and nods his head, "I do Mirana." he chitters happily. A quick look around and he'll pull down the canvas of his little shopfront, ehough to not have everyone see it. "I was thinking of the problem. Of getting the letters to be raised once you figure out what you want on a page." he walks over to a simple looking device. Two heavy steel rollers, it looks adjustable, with a primitive rachet system to one side. "This is a sheet roller. I use it to make steel sheets the right thickness." he takes a strip of steel, and feeds it into the rollers. Turning the crack and the ratcher, forcing the mechanical energy to stretch the steel down a few minute nanometers at a time. Out the steel strip comes on the otherside. A little bit thinner and hot to the touch. "But...what if you take somthing harder..." he quickly reachs over and grabs an iron sheet. The iron has been insciribed with...what looks like the advertisment he put up reguarding his logging. "And put somthing softer over it." he takes a clean copper sheet of the same size. He adjusts the rollers, not needing too much pressure. But he puts the sandwhich of metal in. Iron, copper, iron, and he feeds it through the rollers. It goes fairly easily as he's just tryign to press it, not thin it. It spits out, and with a somewhat practicated motion, he pries apart the two iron sheets, and he peels off the copper. Revealing the negative of iron sheet in raised letters. "Just like the finger prints. But..." he flattens his ears, "Paper shreds when I try to do it that way"

Mirana watches with great attention. Of course pressing and stripping metels was one thing, though she'd never really used a machine to do it. A forge and hammer was her way, the way Kilsa'd showed her. "I see... I see." she says thinking a bit more, pressure was the answer, this made it very obvious. "What if, instead of applying the force like that, it was much more even?" She asks, not entirely sure how to go about that, "With the signat I have, if I press down unevenly, it smeers the wax." She comments. She gives a slight yawn, and a smile after. "I've been looking at materials for putting the raised letters on. Wood? Metel? Stone?" she asks.

Siyu nods his head and he shows the copper plate, "Well I think copper works well. Copper is soft enough that the iron will cause the letters to raise up...it won't rot like woode, and chip like stone." he looks at it, "And the copper is durable enough to withstand some pressure." and then you say it "Pressure..." he considers. "The rollers are...putting pressure in one point at a time right, just where the rollers meet, so the pressure is uneven." he thinks and lays the sheet down. "So what do you think might be able to press evenly?" he goes back to materials. "But you said you were investigating. What did you find were your best options." he'll listen intently, and try to see if he should switch his current track.

Mirana thinks for a bit more, pondering and pondering on all of this. "Well, something to press directly down, here, I'll show you." she says, taking out a candle, a piece of parchment, and her family ring. It is a bit of easy fire math to make the candle light, and a short wait for enough wax to drip and stay hot on the parchment. "Now, I have to press the ring down into the wax, if I get it right," a practiced hand, putting a house signature to paper. "but if I press unevenly," she says, moving to another part of the parchment and pressing at an angle instead this time, the seal smeered beyond recognition and the paper ripping slightly.

Siyu nods his head, "The same can be said...for ink and paper. If you press too unevenly...then the paper tears, or the ink gets all over." he looks at the sheet again "So even and firm pressure has to be applied, somthing that will not crush or tear, but apply all over." he puts a finger to his chin, "I'm going to have to think on that. the other issue I was having is...well. I was just using a brush, to apply ink all over the letters, but it's messy, and wasteful. Do you think there's somthing else that we can use to roll ink evenly over lettering?"

Mirana shakes her head, "Oh the inking is easy, a simple enchantment like what my quill has would do, the letters would ink themselves with just a slight jolt of earth math." She says, then gets back to thinking about pressure, "What if... well, when I press down on my ring, my whole hand down, what if we had something that could give pressure to the whole page at the same time?" She'd obviously put some thought into this already, but hadn't had any real luck yet.

Siyu blinks a bit, and he smacks his head, "Of course...forgive me, I am...I'm magically inept, I know nothing of it, nor do I wish to. I'm a merchant I need my math to stay on the page. Sometimes I forget the obvious solution is more times magic then not." he chitters. "here I am worrying about it when I'm using inscribing quills to cut it." he shakes his head, "I can be a bit of a dolt some time." he takes the sheet and hmms. "Constant pressure. Like a hand pushing down a ring. So enough even weight." he looks at his anvil, "Like hammering iron, hit it the wrong way and the piece will flake or break. So. We need a gentle hammer." he lays the copper sheet on his anvil, and looks around his shop. What may he have.

Mirana nods a bit, "It is ok, you are a lot better with with mathmatics then I'll ever be." She says, looking over the press that Siyu was using, "Yes, gentle, but at the same time big enough to press on the whole parchment." She says thinking and thinking on this. "Like, a whole slab coming down with neat, even force." she says, gesturing at this point, a large-ish something coming down with her hands, pressing one hand firmly to the other. Then watches what Siyu goes to get.

Siyu blinks, "A large sheet a huge slab...yes, actually yes...all right. Um..." he looks around, "I normally use tools to do it. Do you think you could use some of that magic, air magic, to lift up..." he motions. It's a big heavy lead block. Useful for making bullets, you just knock off a hunk and melt it, but in this case it's big and heavy, and a constant pressure. "We take the sheet...ink it." he lays it on the anvil, and begins to brush ink over it. "Lay the sheet gently over it...and then maybey press that slab down upon it. There has to be a better way, but let's test it first."

Mirana nods to Siyu, "Yes, I can do this, just say when." she says, waiting for him to be done, the, a bit of air math to lift up the block, stablising it with a bit of earth, and then, letting it come back down slowly, carefully, until it presses down on the paper evenly, "Just let me know when you want me to lift it up again." she says, panting a bit, it seemed to take some effort and some good calculations to do lifting.

Siyu nods his head as he feels the avil shift and he nods, "All right, let's take it back up and see what happens." A constant pressure on paper and sheet, he'll wait for it to b e clear before he'll put his hands over it. He grabs the edges of the paper, and gently, softly, peels it off of the sheet to see what happeend.

Mirana lifts it back up, groaning with the effort of it once more, and waits until Siyu is ready before carefully setting it back down. She looks very exhausted now, wiping her brow. "Also, how is Jessica Blackback these days? I haven't had a good chance to see her of late." She asks, leaning over on the anvil to keep herself up.

Siyu looks over at you, "Are you all right MIrana, I mean...I dind't mean to stress you, or apply any stress, if you didn't want to do it just tell me" he furrows his brow, "I'll think of a better way to do this..." he says as he pulls the paper up carefully and showing. Well, a rather nice impressio nof the copper sheet underneath it. "Wow...that did it didn't it..." he chitters a little bit and he lays it on the table to dry. Smiling, he blinks though, "Lady Blackback? She is fine. She's..." he motions, "She's a little worried. It's her first pregnancy you know. So she is...unused to how her body is reacting. I suggested she talk to you about it since you're such a good mother." he nods his head, "She seems skittish to talk to Shalia again though. I do not blame her, but I hope she learns to talk to her"

Mirana takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, "It is ok, we are learning here, right?" she asks, looking at the page, "Yes, that seems to do it nicely, but that is far too much work to do over and over again, it would be easier to scribe it out over and over." She says. She gets to thinking about Jessica, "Well, we are both fairly busy beings, but when I can I'll arrange a lunch with her to talk." She thinks a bit longer, "Yes, I can understand her not wanting to talk to Shaila after what happened." She says, looking a bit dismayed about it, "Maybe we could all talk sometime." She offers.

Siyu nods his head, "I would like that, to talk with her. I've been trying to offer advice, and soothing words. To try and help. She's stil happy, still cheerful, but I think she fears the spirits a little, and I can't help her with the mysteries of life." he looks over, and shly smiles, "But I'm sure you can offer her a lot of help. A good deal of help. I would do what I can ,but I think you all should talk yes." he nods happily. "Meanwhile, now we know what we have to do." he looks at the sheet and considers, "How many books are in the libraries anyway...1000? 2000? How many have survived..." he considers, "And how many pages. But...that's a thought for another day. For now I'll putter with the weights..." he nods

Mirana shakes her head a moment, "The spirits are those to be feared, for they can be very very powerful, but if you do what is right, then all will be well in the end." She says, thinking a bit more and giggling as Siyu gives that shy look again, "I'll do what I can Siyu, and as for books, there are not near that many, hundreds if all that I have seen, between here and Cliffside. Perhaps more out in the desert areas." She says, looking over to the clock, "Humm, we made some good work today! But I should be to my kits, is there anything else?" she asks.

Siyu nos his head, "Prehaps a library of plates soon. Any scholar can come and ask for a new book, and one could be made in a day!" he chitters, "Wouldn't that be somthing..." he reachs over to you, he hasn't had his hug after all, and he squeezes around you, hugging tight. "Mmmm, be well Mirana, can't wait to see you again"

Mirana thinks about that and smiles, "That would be something! Only a day, that would be increadible." She says, hugging back to Siyu, smiling even more, "You are a good being Siyu, I hope you get everything you are looking for." She says before finally letting go and heading back toward Freeswords, "I can't wait to see you either!" she says.

Siyu bows once more and he chitters, rubbing where you hugged him and he lets out a whistlful little sigh, mmmming, and going back to thinkign!