PROBLEM SOLVERS | Days 7-9

[brassandblood]

Scenario A - The Dining Hall

[ You may find the forge - now called Ember - around here quite a lot over the days following the vines' retreat. She's often pacing around the huge table on the floor, looking at its structure carefully; or scaling it, taking measurements and examining the table's edge; or sometimes using her power over metal to peel away large strips from the giant dinner plates set out for the residents. She's obviously busy, but she'll stop to talk if anyone cares to ask what she's up to. ]

Scenario B - The Hearth Room

[ Ember is often laboring away over her possession-body, using its heat to help craft the metal she's brought back from the dining hall as she'd like without having to use up so much of her magic to do it. She may be twining together long, sturdy cables of metal rope, or molding small chunks of metal into pulleys, or crafting rods into sharp and durable nails, or bending long strips of metal into a wire frame. When she's working so hard, she could probably use a reminder to take a break and rest sometimes. ]

Comments

Scenario B

[horseish]

[The filly only woke up some small time ago, but already she's discovered an instinct to explore everywhere she doesn't quite remember from her immediate past. Granted, she doesn't seem to remember much of anything.

She pauses at the door of the hearth room. She hasn't spoken to any of these other... *things* yet. As a pet, she'd never needed to. But things are oddly changed now, and she feels drawn in to what this stranger is doing. It is far more interesting than galloping around the same bit of garden as usual, after all.

She crouches in the doorway, all her senses alert for intruders, and settles in with wide eyes to watch the apparent magic happening in front of her.]

[brassandblood]

[ Even though she's a forge and immune to heat, Ember is sweating steaming, silvery drops as she works. She's drawing a bundle of thick wires through the heat of her coals, slow and careful, soldering them together and then twisting the bundle in a spiral to form a strong, sturdy rope. It's slow going, especially since there's so much length to be treated in this way, but she's at least nearly done with this coil for the first pulley. She's been using some of her magic on the metal so it can flex and coil the way she needs it to, but mostly it's just heat and physical labor that she's bringing to bear.

At last she finishes up and sets the pile of cable-rope aside, wiping off her forehead with a sigh. She glances over to the door and sees...someone? They're hiding mostly behind the doorway. Maybe they think it's strange or frightening, watching her use her ability. ]

Hello? You can come out from there, it's all right.

[horseish]

[Her heart jumps, but she holds her grounds. Very unusual for a horse.]

I can see here just fine.

[brassandblood]

I can't see you, though. That doesn't seem fair.

[ She smiles, hoping she's not frightening the girl. ]

Hearth Room, Day 7

[manelesscatking]

As Ember re-enters the hearth room, she's greeted with rather an unpleasant scene. Much of the wooden furniture has been splintered or scratched, and a couple metal items have been bent. A page moves busily about the room, setting objects in their approximate original positions and making faces at the more egregiously broken items. They look familiar, like they were one of the folks poking around in the hidden room a couple days ago.

"Hello," the page calls out gruffly. "You're the forge, right? I hope I didn't put any of this stuff back wrong."

[brassandblood]

"Oh- hello," she replies, nodding to them. The page does look familiar, from the first time they woke up with vines on the move everywhere.

She goes to the corner with her possession-body, checking it over carefully. "My area looks all right, at least. This place is a wreck, what even happened?"

[manelesscatking]

The page grins sheepishly and picks up one of the withered vines from the ground. "These happened," they say before they chuck the vine into the hearth. "I barricaded myself in here, but I was all alone and it, uh...it didn't work out so well."

They turn back to straightening up. "What are you up to today, Miss...?" They glance over their shoulder as they lug a chair across the room, seeming to expect a name.

A // Day 8

[infernoandhearth]

The fire guy is leaning over the rim of a chair, watching the forge woman pace around and work on some sort of project. His chin rests on his forearms, the rest of his body stretched comfortably behind him along the chair. He watches her go for a while before calling out, "Building something?"

[brassandblood]

Ember startles slightly, but when she looks over at him, she smiles. "Yeah. It's annoying having to climb this table all the time to eat, and I'm sure it's not much fun for anyone else around here either, so I'm trying to construct something to fix that."

She sets down the metal strips she's been working on gathering for her trip back to the hearth room, walking over to greet her companion properly - she's never seen him before. "You look new, I've only seen two other fire people here before. I'm the forge - I'm called Ember. You?"

[infernoandhearth]

The kitchen fire clambers up and over to face Ember properly, his hands at his sides in the sort of casual way that imply they'd be in pockets if he were wearing trousers. "That's a good idea. It's not even been a day and it's already tiresome. I'll help out, if you'd like." He knows he knows, even if he doesn't know how he knows.

"I'm new to being awake here, at least." And, without any hesitation, "I'm Spark, unless I change my mind."

A

[fiveagainstradley]

The wooden boy has eaten his fill of messy fruit and giant biscuits, and clambers down from the table haphazardly, very nearly missing the girl walking around it.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't see you!"

[brassandblood]

Ember's startled a moment, but then relaxes. She does, however, back away a little - she's still wearing her metal protection, but no need to leave it to risk with a wooden boy.

"It's no problem," she replies with a smile. "Are you all right?"

[fiveagainstradley]

The boy gives no sign of being afraid of fire or fire people, though he stays at a respectable distance.

"I'm fine. I'm made of sturdy stuff, though it is quite a high table."

A - Day 9

[ironspirit]

[The sword had seen her working earlier in the hearth room, but his curiosity wasn't strong enough to lure him over to the forge, especially in his current state. Whatever she was busy with, he didn't need to know that badly. It was probably something boring anyway. Right. No need to investigate.

It's been a day since he returned, and he feels a bit more confident about scaling the dining table this time. Sore, rusty hands are better than stiff numb hands, right? Maybe? But he doesn't get a chance to test that, because when he walks up to the table he sees her there.

He stops, awkwardly standing at the foot of the table, unsure if he should stay or go. On one hand, he's hungry again, but on the other hand, the forge is there and he might have to talk to her. They haven't spoken since his first day awake, and he isn't too eager to change that.

But, in the end, hunger wins out. He takes a deep breath and digs his rusted edges into the sides of the leg, very slowly making his way up. He's not getting up there fast, that's for sure, but his grip is unsteady enough that he doesn't want to risk going any faster.]

[brassandblood]

[ Ember is absorbed in what she's doing, but then she hears a strange...scraping? She peers over the side of the table, and there's the sword, making his way up. It's a relief to know he made it out of Mason's deranged punishment as well.

He looks pretty badly off, though. Not as bad as the hearth, but still bad. And he looks so unsteady on the table leg, dangerously so. One of the things she was here to do - and has already done - is test her cables' load-bearing ability. She unclips the coil from her belt and starts sending it over the edge. ]

Grab on to that, I'll pull you up.

[ironspirit]

[He hears her voice before he sees the cable, and the sword freezes, clinging to the table leg. This is exactly the kind of interaction he was hoping to avoid.

He eyes the descending cable before answering. It looks... sturdy, at least. But he'd probably slip if he tried to climb something like that, or it would melt, or he would melt. There's really no telling what would happen.]

... I'm fine. I'll just, uh, climb up myself. [Hopefully it sounded convincing to her, because it really didn't to him.]

B, Day 8

[grotesqueobserver]

[The statue had been keeping himself occupied clearing out debris in the great hall nearby when he slowly became aware of the rhythmic sound of metal on metal that had been going on for quite some time in the nearby hearth room. Someone, it was clear, was very busy in there.

His curiosity piqued, he made his way to the source of the sound, discovering the woman hard at work, the heat blasting away from her forge. He studies the assortment of already-forged metal, at a loss to its purpose. Some kind of pulley system, perhaps?]

What are you making? Um, if you don't mind my asking, that is.

[He stays a respectful distance away, close enough to observe, but far enough to be out of the way.]

[brassandblood]

Oh, not at all.

[ She lets out a tired sigh, setting down the piece she's just finished and turning to the stranger with a small smile. ]

I've noticed it's difficult to climb the dining table for food, so I'm making a few pulleys to make it easier.

[grotesqueobserver]

[His eyes widen, and a delighted smile lights up his face.]

Oh wow, that's...that's brilliant.

[And relevant to his own interests as well. Rocks are not so good at climbing. He looks over her workspace with renewed interest.]

Did you need help or anything? You seem to have been at this quite a while.

[He gives the pile of parts a nod]

I don't really know a whole lot about forging I'm afraid, but heat and fire don't bother me at all. Maybe that'll come in handy for you?

B

[saylazy]

[Yui wanders into the room, take aback by the bright glow of fire and the way Ember works the metal with it. She's never seen anything so bright, and so amazing before, and she isn't sure how to respond beyond an exclaimed gasp of wonder.]

Wooooooow.

[brassandblood]

[ She's startled a little, but she doesn't jump, not when she's doing work that she could easily harm or weaken. She carefully sets her current piece to the side, going to pump the bellows and bring up the heat in her forge body. As she does, she looks over at the newcomer. ]

Never seen anyone work metal before? You can come closer if you want a better look, just don't touch - everything's very hot.

[saylazy]

[She nods staring at the forge in wonder.]

How do you do that?

A of course

[vinetattoos]

[Kale is lying on his stomach, looking over the edge of the table at his sister with a smile. He takes a bite out of his handful of bread and chews as he watches her pace.]

What, exactly, are you hoping to accomplish here?

[brassandblood]

Making it easier for people to reach the top. Our current arrangement just isn't practical.

[ Ember looks up at him with a smile of her own. ]

Not everyone's as nimble as some of us.

A. pretend this was even vaguely on time......

[earnedmystripes]

[So, a tiger in the dining room. Not quite as poetic an image as a bull in a china shop, but perhaps a more amusing one? Certainly, there's a certain amount of schadenfreude to be found in him trying to build up enough momentum to get a decent amount of height and then scratching his way to the top.

...Mason is probably less amused, however, considering his repeated failures are leading to nice long claw trails all along that poor table leg.]

Stupid table!!!