2017-05-15: Unofficial Inquiries
- Log: Unofficial Inquiries
- Cast: Cassidy Cain, Noah Hawthorne, Emma Hetfield
- Where: Hetfield Industries, a basement suite somewhere in Adlehyde
- Date: May 15, 2017
- Summary: With Noah Hawthorne successfully recruited to investigate the inevitable cataclysm that is bound to hit Adlehyde, a published pamphlet about the recently discovered Elw-developed Lolithia golem brings Cassidy and Noah to meet with Professor Emma Hetfield to ask about her discovery, and to warn her of what's to come.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
Hetfield Industries is, in fact, a glorified basement under a building across the street from the Starfell Saloon. To be fair, it's a pretty big basement.
Coming down, the dynamic duo would have encountered some sweaty men who have been moving around what look like large cylinders of metal on stands. These are the Emma Motors. These men would be time-wasting obstacles but when it is clear that Cassidy and Noah are not interested in either renting the Emma Motors JUST yet, or that they are not agents of the press here to try and sneak interviews, they would be directed towards the Professor's Office.
The Professor's Office is behind several improvised walls of crates with a piece of dramatic rooftop mounted lampwork that is shining on a table with drafting tools and notes on it. There is a single bed folded out in a corner. Emma herself is slouching with her jacket off in a comfy if old-looking chair, feet soaking in a tub, flipping through something on this strange glowing green tablet of glass she has, and a nearby ashtray steadily getting refilled from the tip of a foot-long bakelite cigarette holder.
Presumably genius is tiring. She also ignores people wandering in completely, at least until addressed... maybe even then. She does have a reputation for eccentricity.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
The Baskar shamans, for all intents and purposes, have done good work in stitching and healing Noah back together from his ordeal in Lahan.
There were no appointments set, but the published pamphlets that detailed Emma's discovery for all of Adlehyde to read and measure have circulated far and wide already and it was inevitable that some people are bound to come calling. Two sets of booted feet make their way down the stairs leading into the glorified basement suite of Hetfield Industries. Cassidy herself gives the sweaty workmen aa wide berth, if not just to courteously get out of the way of their endeavours, a brow perked upward as she watches them move away and vanish to where they should be. The Emma Motors get a glance, though she would have no hope of discerning just what she is looking at, or what they do - her skillset lies in a completely different hemisphere from the intricacies of mechanics, engineering and ancient technology.
But that is, perhaps, why she is here.
She cuts a tall, lithe figure when she steps into the Professor's Office, emerald eyes flecked with gold falling on the woman marked by her grainy photograph in the most recently published paper. There's a long, assessing examination while the older woman appears engrossed with her work, a shoulder leaning against the doorframe and her fingers hooking into the pockets of her leather breeches. An easy smile quirks up on the corners of her mouth, mischievous in its bent, giving her companion a gamely side-eye.
"Dinnae I say she would be fetching, luv?" she wonders of Noah, voice slightly raised and just enough to be heard by the ARMS meister. "You've got your work cut out for you if you wanted tae escort such a lovely treasure tae the upcoming Exhibit. Should I leave the two of you alone so you can discuss your similar academic interests?"
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
To look at him no one would ever guess that Noah had been close to death's door only an evening ago. He's still wounded, but he keeps that to himself: nothing in his posture, gait, or expression indicates anything but easy relaxation, self-command. What surfaces on his face as they descend is curiosity, naked and undisguised, his choices very different from blonde's beside him. He strays close to the workmen, and pries at the cylindrical exteriors of the motors with eyes that intimately know technology, glittering hazel sharp as the end of crowbars, watching them over his shoulder until they disappear from view and he and Cassidy reach the bottom floor of the basement.
She takes up a slim lean against the frame and he would, usually, adopt a lean against the other side, but physical constraints imposed by his injuries make that a non-starter. He settles for banding cabled arms over a broad chest and tilting his head to one side, studying Emma with every bit of the same assessment as his companion. He meets Cassidy's glance briefly, and summons a lazy flicker of a smile.
"You did say that, yeah." Cassidy's brogue is heavy and obvious; Noah's accent is subtler, different. Not a clear product of any one region, but something of its own, possibly hybridized from the tongues of many places. "But we're here on business," he adds, aiming a twinkle-eyed, good-humored look at the academic behind the desk, "And I try not to mix business with pleasure. Besides, if I'm reading this right--" Two fingers lift, a folded sheet of parchment between index and middle, probably the posted notice about Hetfield's recent discoveries, "This find is too important to screw up with personal agendas."
As though she isn't even there. Wry, though.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
The Emma Motors aren't very impressive from outside. They are perhaps a little sleeker and newer than things you'd see in mines. The advantages must be interior. Noah can get a better idea, though: These are replicas and moderate improvements of the electric motors which are often found in Gears or relic installations. Of perhaps some note is that they have been *remade* - there is none of that faint sense of warded-off entropy that come with refurbished ARMs or other relics. If there are components that aren't contemporary in them, they aren't immediately visible.
Emma looks up, lips quizzically around the stem of the cigarette holder, when she hears people talking nearby. She shifts in her position and leans back, putting the tablet quietly into something on the far side of the chair and out of sight. (Secretly: it's probably a charger.)
She takes a deep drag and lets it out with a leisurely 'pahh' as she crosses one leg over the other. The fact that this flirtatious gesture doesn't work super well when you have been soaking your feet in a tub doesn't stop her. Few things stop her.
"Hmmm. Step a little closer so I can assess you, if Meredin dear already gave you the pre-cleara-- Oh, you aren't here for that?" Emma lets her head tilt forwards. "How sad. Me, oh my, oh me. The path of genius is often very lonely, so it's a good thing that the eugenical theories have poor statistical backing."
She waves the two of them closer. "Please forgive me for not meeting you, but I don't know who you are and didn't expect you. I have a cheese plate on the table there if you want to help yourself. I'll get up in just a minute."
To Noah, she asks directly, "Please bring me one of the cloths from that box on your left." To that left is a wooden box full of faded but clean cloth rags. It has been neatly lettered on the front, presumably with black paint, 'faded (but clean) cloth rags.'
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
"Well, far be it for me tae dissuade a gentleman from his business," Cassidy says, angling a look of reflected humor right back at the relic hunter. Directed promptly to the cheese plate though, she pivots and moves for it immediately, plucking the entire thing off the table so she could move closer. Deft fingers balance it effortlessly on one hand as those light steps take her back towards the desk, while green eyes take a swift accounting of the room's dimensions, tools and other details scattered about. Not that she is looking for anything in particular, but old habits are not easy to get rid of and no matter how determinedly she attempts to bury them, they resurface unforgivingly from the sea of her instincts.
She offers the platter to Noah once he's done what the Professor asks, before she turns to the woman herself. "Should have called ahead, but business took the both of us out of the town proper. We just now got back and we went straight tae see you. Our purpose is a wee bit time sensitive, y'ken. I hope you dinnae think of this impromptu visit as too much of an inconvenience, but it cannae be helped."
With that, she surreptitiously toes her boot against the door to Emma's office, letting it swing shut, barring the rest of the lab slash basement from hearing the rest of the conversation.
The blonde woman gestures to herself. "The name's Cassidy Cain, was conscripted recently by the mayor tae look into a few things. Unfortunately, my expertise is in transactions and how goods move from one point tae another, and when my inquiries were leading intae archaeological territory, I enlisted my associate here for assistance. His name is Noah Hawthorne, archaeologist and explorer. He tells me that his specialty is ARMs, the older the more interesting. Anyway, I figured he'd be more qualified tae speak on the subject more than myself." She reaches behind her, taking out the pamphlet with Emma's name on it and showing it to her.
"The mayor got a line from some credible sources that some disaster may fall intae the Exhibition now that everything else that's delaying it seems tae have been shoved aside at your most recent discovery, so you can imagine why it's a concern for His Honor. The aim, if not tae stop it, is tae mitigate the damage that's coming our way. It'd be verra helpful, Professor, if you can tell us a bit more about what you found in the Tomb."
She pauses, and adds: "Off the record, of course. In the strictest confidence. Nae one tae want tae cause panic until the information's all collected."
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
Something that Emma says provokes a small, private smile in Noah, who tilts his chin down, lowers his gaze to the floor, keeping whatever it was to himself. It's not a bashful look -- that kind of thing may actually be literally impossible for him, or at least highly suspect if he manages one -- just the nuanced movements of a man keeping the counsel of his own thoughts. .
It also doesn't last long. He and Cassidy are invited through the door and he follows suit, attention swept across the motley accumulation of tools, references, personal effects, but where her attention is efficient and almost instinctive, his is just as curious as it was on the stairs, a lingering and engaged sort of attention.
...To which Emma is the beneficiary when she asks him to fetch her something. He twists at the torso, flicks a look over his shoulder, then turns to retrieve what she wants from the box, spending only a moment looking at the extremely specific label on the side. "No forgiveness necessary, prof. Though you're not entirely wrong about why we're here." One cloth procured, he carries it over to the desk and holds it out to be taken, and should she choose to glance up at him, she'll receive a wink to go along with the phantom suggestion of a smile he doesn't quite allow to find full expression.
In the meantime, Cassidy begins to lay out their reasons for being there, and he only interjects once: "ARMs, ancient cultures and languages...not surprised that Cassie didn't remember the other two, though. She's not especially enamored of the subject."
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
"Hm, hm. I do ken," Emma replies, but she's watching Noah come over with a cloth. She arches her leg upwards into her lap and starts giving herself a fastidious foot-drying, arching up the other leg with remarkable flexibility to return the favor to her other foot. "Thank you," she tells Noah. "You study the ARM too? I don't think we've ever met... of course, I was spending most of my time with Zepet, and naturally, my eccentricities and intellectual prowess have intimidated a lot of people. I'm glad to meet you now, Noah."
As she keeps drying her feet, Emma talks more. "Interesting, interesting. Well, I would ask you to wait for the publication of the first volume of my memoirs, which I assure you will be available in a reasonably priced edition for the mass market, but it sounds as if you're in a great deal of haste, no doubt for your true patrons..."
Is she not buying the mayor thing? She keeps talking anyway. Maybe this is the 'eccentricity'. "Unfortunately I don't have much that I'm withholding other than the details in the account that we had published by a completely independent reporter, which I see, Noah, you've secured a copy of. Could you pass me a pair of shoes?"
There is a rack with six pairs of apparently identical green two-inch pumps, which Emma vaguely points towards.
"What's the danger that you're concerned about? The Golems were controlled by autonomous methods and are almost certainly completely and permanently de-activated," Emma explains further. "It's not for nothing that this was called 'Lolithia's Tomb,' not 'Lolithia's Comfortable Repose' or 'Lolithia's Storage Center Until We Need To Go Have A Grinding War With Kislev.'"
She then turns her head to consider Noah again. "A student of the ARM, of history, and a cunning linguist. Are you also working for the mayor? I'm always looking for good help, and translation is one of the fields where we're a little deficient. Lots of people with their little precious journals and guidemaps, but not a lot of people who are really able to understand how a tongue is used."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Lashes lid over her eyes, but Cassidy maintains her businesslike expression, though she does angle a look at Noah sidelong when most of the professor's comments are addressed to him. "Well," she remarks wryly. "That's nae surprising. He is rather shy. The type that requires a strong, guiding but feminine hand, methinks. But that's all conjecture, Professor. I'm just starting tae get tae know Mr. Hawthorne here, myself."
There's a glint there, recalling what the man had told her before about the people who often address him as Mr. Hawthorne, but whatever devilish impulse is there is handily disguised by elegant fingers plucking a piece of cheese off the plate and nibbling on it thoughtfully.
"Frankly, we dinnae know, which is why we're trying tae gather up as much as we can about the exhibits being presented," the blonde remarks. "Just that it's bound tae be disastrous and deadly." Though there's no urgency in her tone, blunt and factual in its delivery. "The mayor's not verra forthcoming about his source, not that I was in any position tae pry."
The identification of Noah as a cunning linguist has her swallowing down a smirk.
"In your best estimation, if one did want tae try and bring a Golem back tae life, what would they need, exactly?" she wonders, inclining her head. "You mentioned autonomous methods?"
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
There are ARMs in his holsters. Unusual. For practiced, educated eyes, they're early Metal Demon Wars-era relics, though the holsters themselves, low at either hip, conceal most of the bodies of them. For the most part only the ivory grips and the array of metal cylinders rainbowed over the top of either one are visible, and a pair of barrels at the low point -- significantly larger than pistols.
Two low notes of amusement sound in his chest when she mentions her intellectual prowess and its intimidation of other people. "I'm not easily frightened off, so it's good to meet you too, Ms. Hetfield." The sound he makes when he's described as shy is significantly more obvious, a sharp and incredulous note of mirth that he restrains save for the way it slashes a brief, sharp, white half-smile across his face. "Yeah," he agrees, humor polishing his voice. "Shy."
He takes two steps backward to leave her with the room to go about tidying herself and drying her feet, and for the most part he's as determinedly polite about what he's looking at as he was about the words he decided to let come out of his mouth, but it would be a lie to say they didn't detour, twice.
Leg man, probably.
The words 'true patrons' send one of his brows toward his hairline, though he says nothing. He's given another instruction, and after a glance aside at Cassidy turns without any word of protest to retrieve...shoes. This time, the pause owes itself to his study of each pair, as though there were mystery differences about each of them that eluded his gaze, unfamiliar as it is with the technical particulars of women's shoes. He can see none, a fact that causes his brows to skew for a dubious look. Six pairs of shoes that are exactly the same? ...Why?
Not that he would ever ask. He clears his throat, picks up a pair from the rack (actually conducting a small experiment, he chooses the left from one pair and the right from another, curious as to whether or not she can even tell the difference) and brings them back.
"In this instance, prof, I'm lending my expertise to Cassie. I'm not important enough anywhere to be hired by mayors, I'm 'fraid. I'm here for three reasons: she asked me; the disaster they're talking about is serious enough that I'd have a hard time walking away from getting involved; and..." This pause is brief, softened at the last when his eyes lid. "Well, personal interest, to be honest. We haven't met because I have no patience for grants and most academics prefer libraries to physical labor, but this is all in my wheelhouse, so to speak. It's interesting, and I can never resist interesting." He lifts a hand, loosely thumbs over one shoulder the way they came. "New machining on Gear-type engines? That's interesting. And the tomb?" Both of his brows perk, just a little. Just enough. "What language was it in originally? Because it's easy to assume that a translation is literal. 'Tomb' doesn't necessarily have to mean that everything in it is dead. That depends pretty heavily on how the culture that built and named it viewed death, among other things."
There's a brief silence, and then small, rueful smile. "I've been told I've got a way with it," he says. Languages or his tongue? He leaves it unclear, one assumes deliberately. "And I guess I'd be open to discussing lending it to you on occasion."
Cassie's question is pertinent. It draws his gaze, and he sends her a short nod: he wants to know, too.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
Emma's legs are extremely well formed; mild affluence and forgetting to eat lunch have intersected perfectly with the exercise of apparently wearing heels all day to produce excellent results, even if she didn't have any stockings on.
As the others speak Emma takes the cigarette out of its holder and finds a new one. "The Emma Motor is more than a simple replica or cobbling-together of an ancient product. Many people are very proficient at replicating or adjusting these relics, in fact I'm told that it's more or less the entire reason for the Ethos to exist, other than the noble and holy pursuit of eating the biscuit."
"Please pardon me if I am insulting your faith," Emma adds after a second. "The lay followers are excellent people. But in my line of work, I've had more than a few conflicts with priests."
Emma then reaches for a pen, although when she clicks it, it is revealed to be some kind of an ARM - if a petty one - because she's using it as a lighter. She twists in her chair as Noah comes back, taking an ignitory drag and then examining the shoes he gave her. "Hmmm... You mixed them. Any reason? If they're your absolute favorites, please feel free to help me put them on. Sometimes they're a little tight, but I enjoy the thrilling feeling of perfect fit."
Emma's feet are accessible if Noah feels like escalating further, but otherwise Emma seems happy to editorialize from her current posture. "As for the Golems. It's not clear if at this remove it would be possible to do so at all, because we have not taken one apart in order to study it. They were originally created by the Elw, and their operational principles were not fully revealed, even if they worked in coordination with individuals."
"Unlike Gears," Emma continues as she tilts her head back and blows smoke at the roof, "They operated themselves. If I can make an analogy, Noah... Your motions at the moment are nearer to how a Gear operates, in that you are controlling your actions, though of course you don't use levers and joysticks and pedals to do so. At least I presume you aren't a mouse in a cunningly crafted disguise. However, the operation of a Golem was more akin to our relationship at present. I would say 'fetch me my shoes,' and the Golem would then fetch the shoes, except that in this case the shoes would be Metal Demons."
Emma points the eighteen-inch-long piece of fashion accessory towards Cassidy, in general. "Assuming that we could confirm that the Golem was not permanently de-activated, and eluding all of the other challenges which would require active disassembly and years of study, you would no doubt need to find the correct command expressions. These would be complicated - Elw engineering is mysterious to us, considering that they seem to have left and slash or died out - but at that hypothetical point you would have control over the Golem in the manner I am exercising alluringly feminine control over Noah, Miss Cain."
"Does this answer your questions? Please feel free to elaborate. Usually the questions I receive are much more vague and general."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
She exhibits all the signs of a woman who is armed with a healthy appetite, but enough of a slave to her senses that she savors every bite. The brie sandwiched between the deft touch of an index and thumb on the flaky platform of a cracker disappears in a leisurely series of nibbles, her attention focused on Emma even as she speaks about the Emma Motor; the mention of Ethos doesn't generate any reaction as even a novice has heard of them. The woman's apology, though, has her waving her hand to the side. "Nae a priest, and nae Ethos either," she tells the woman simply. "So dinnae worry there, luv, you're definitely nae offending me."
Though when she asks Noah to help Emma put her shoes on for her, she doesn't even look at the archaeologist. She simply arranges another piece of cheese on a cracker for her to snack on, lashes lowered to the plate. It does well to hide the expression in her eyes.
Emma's lecture does have her lifting again, but by then, she's recovered her composure. She is trying to be a professional here; while it has been years since she has performed on stage, those roots have a very real hold on the blonde. She says enough unfamiliar terms, at least to a novice in archaeology such as herself, that causes her to furrow her brows. "Metal Demons," she repeats, her brogue flat and disbelieving. "What are those? Beasts that emerge from the nine circles with horns and wings and shite, only made of metal or....encased armor? Sommat?"
Look, she's guessing. None of this is in her wheelhouse, this is why she brought Noah along.
"Command expressions....verbal?" she wonders. "If they're verbal, cannae you just find the receptors that receive those commands and disable them tae make sure they dinnae wake up and ruin everything if someone says the right thing?" Or wrong thing, in their case.
But at that hypothetical point, you would have control over the golem in the manner I am exercising alluringly feminine control over Noah, Miss Cain.
There is a pause. She glances over at the relic hunter with a perfectly flat, perfectly unreadable expression.
She slowly turns back to look at Emma.
"If we are tae use your example, in order for Noah tae fetch your shoes, he would have had tae hear your request before he obliged. What if the Golem's deaf?"
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
"I haven't got any use for the Church." Absent dismissal from Noah, who then cocks a brow as the professor does notice that her shoes have been mixed. "I wanted to see if you'd notice," he admits, though he doesn't delve into the reasons why, peripheral as they are to the conversation.
But then she invites him to put them on her feet, and the corner of his mouth quirks, one brow slid inward in a skeptical knit. "Sorry, prof, but I'm not getting paid enough to put clothes on you." He leans down and sets them neatly by her chair, though, and while she provides answers to the question she was asked he's facing away, gaze lanced out through the makeshift doorway at the activity beyond. It's when the explanation takes the form of a personal sally in his direction that he turns back around, and he splits his focus between Cassidy and Emma until that very last bit -- the bit where she compares him with a Golem.
Something in his expression shutters, though it remains patient. He doesn't seem offended, exactly, but the choice of metaphor splashes cold water over all of those humid little undercurrents in the conversation.
"I can be obliging when I'm asked nicely, but I choose to be obliging. You're going to mislead Miss Cain if you start telling her Golems are anything like me." His smile has an edge to it, closed-lipped and flinted. "I haven't got much use for authority, either." He settles in, then, back to the wall, arms loosely folded, a casual lean that says he's in no hurry to go anywhere. "Not beasts," is what he says, of Metal Demons, though he fails to elaborate.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
Emma flexes her bare feet. Looking at Noah, she says with a raise of the eyebrows, "I will remember that... Mr. Hawthorne." After this she settles back and takes another long drag on the cigarette holder.
"It's ambiguous what they actually were. But your outline isn't entirely incorrect - though of course they were not literally from 'Hell' in the sense of a hypothetical place where naughty children are punished eternally for temporary infractions."
Her legs cross as she turns her eyes back towards Noah for a few moments, then towards Cassidy. "That's not a bad idea. The problem is that it would require breaking open the Golem to do. That's not exactly easy - they were, as far as we can determine, the model and inspiration for Gears, even if Gears are of course larger and more diverse."
Straightening up slightly, Emma says, "What I'm saying is that it is no doubt possible to open up a Golem and do what you describe. But we can't assume that they listen with their 'heads', either. Indeed, in terms of relative size, the most effective place for them to have hearing receptors is in the knees or lower thighs."
After this, she settles back down for a moment.
A moment longer.
Emma then says, "It's extremely unlikely that anyone will simply accidentally say the code, although I suppose that the risk, however small, is likely why they were entombed. To answer your question, however, Noah, the expression of 'Tomb' in the context of Lolithia has been rather clear - I don't think there's ambiguity, though perhaps we could go over the material later, just in case."
Her eyes go to Cassidy's own. She wrinkles her nose to push her glasses back up the bridge a little without having to move her hands. "Do you think there are people out there who might know those codes?"
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
The blonde sets down the cheese plate, sliding her hands back in her pockets as she glances at some far point in the wall past Emma's head, eyes half-lid and those golden flecks glittering within those shadowed evergreen fields. Her expression remains elusive, but to glimpse such a serious expression on the woman's face is rare, for those who are familiar with her comfortable facade of the mischievous trickster. For a while, she doesn't move, collating the pieces of information that the woman has just provided in the fathomless databanks of that prodigiously detail-oriented brain, no matter how much she tries to ignore this aspect of herself ninety percent of the time. Presently, however, she can't afford it.
Namely because she doesn't want to die.
And because everyone she's come to know do not intend to leave Adlehyde any time soon, she doesn't want them to die either, though to drag that admission out of her would require four horses and her limbs strapped upon them to be quartered bloodily on the street.
Do you think there are people out there who might know those codes?
Cassidy finally reanimates, pushing away from the doorframe to move towards Emma. Taking a blank, white rectangular strip of cardboard from a hidden compartment inside of her lighter, silver and wrought with that ouroboros decal that would be familiar to Noah, now, the serpent's eyes inlaid with two tiny sapphires, she writes her name and the address of the hotel she is staying in. This, she hands to Emma; for a woman who dresses and speaks roughly, her penmanship is almost painfully feminine, set with elegant flourishes.
"I've seen a lot of strange shite out there, Professor," she tells her amiably. "And coincidences work strangely around me. I've learned a long time ago that I cannae afford tae rule anything out, if I want tae keep my head above water. The world may be just one giant, sandy tomb, but that dinnae mean dead things cannae be dangerous." As Noah has recently learned in Lahan.
There's a nod to the card. "If you can think of any more, get in touch with me, ay?" There's a glance at Noah, the look of her inquiring, in case the man has his own questions to pose to the older woman.
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
I'll remember that, Mr. Hawthorne.
Noah says nothing, unwilling to interrupt the flow of the conversation, but his eyes have the trick of smiling, and they do, glittering in a wry way that says there's more to his inner dialogue than that look can possibly convey.
He does finally speak toward the last, once Cassidy's written on her card and glanced his way expectantly. He meets that glance, then turns hazel eyes toward Emma, though his tone suggests he's speaking to both. "Not all language is verbal." After a beat, he lifts broad shoulders in a small, easy shrug, lidded eyes turned into a leonine blink. "There are plenty of documented cases of ARMs -- Zeboim-era, older than Golems -- that respond only to certain individuals. I'm no scientist-- " His half-smile returns, tilted over to one side of his mouth, "-- but I believe that's what you'd call biometrics. Responses keyed to certain unique qualities of a user's physical presence -- some more mysterious to us than others. These are almost always fail-safe conditions. On weapons, it's easy to understand why. The last thing you want on the battlefield is somebody on the other side turning your own technology against you. But that communication happens in total silence. It's an information exchange that doesn't need spoken language. There's no saying the Golems don't operate the same way. I've been looking at the artifacts in the exhibition and to be honest...I haven't been all that impressed. I've seen almost all of it before. There are a few things that could theoretically be tied to the crisis in question, but they'd be long shots. Maybe one of them interacts with the Golems in a way we haven't documented yet -- there are a very few Metal Demons-Wars artifacts on display...and maybe they could be manipulated based on other signals. Conditions."
He rolls his shoulders forward and straightens, unfolds his arms. "Hell if I know, but if we're lucky? We won't have to find out."
Green and whiskey-brown eyes hang on the professor for a long moment before he visibly decides to add: "You can get me through Cassie here, if you decide you want to double-check those materials of yours." This does not actually sound like innuendo.
He starts to turn around, then stops. "The Tomb. It still open?"
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
It seems like people are fixing to go. Emma picks up her shoes and starts putting them on. The way she does it has something childish about it, like it's a struggle. Not because of the size, but something in how she kicks her legs and rolls around. This may be more than zaniness, but that's a personal issue.
"If it helps you sleep at night," Emma says once she's gotten her shoes on and can thus safely and comfortably rise up, "or during the afternoon for that matter... I will propose to King Justin that the Golems be displayed in a, a -" She waves the cigarette holder around like a magic wand. "I'm not sure the right term. But a controlled situation, with guards on hand. We'll tell the guards that if anyone starts shouting control phrases at the Golems, pow!" She jabs forward as if to skewer thin air in the belly with her holder. "Repeated as neccessary."
After this she steps up to take the card. "Of course. Where can I reach you...?"
But it's Noah who speaks. For some reason Emma's attention snaps up when he says 'biometrics.' "Exactly," she says, with a firm and vigorous nod. "Many of the ARMs have similar restraints, as you say. It's quite possible that there's no risk at all. But a little precaution can go a long way."
After this she takes a leisurely pose and considers his question. "I believe we're cleaning up the last of what we were developing now that Lolithia's been secured... I can't guarantee that you'll find anything. But if you two want to investigate, you might find things that we miss. Just tell me if it's a thrilling new discovery, or if you need the Emma Motor to help you extract your finds."
"Thank you both for visiting me," she says. "I enjoy meeting new and interesting people. Do you want to be contacted for future excavations?"
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Noah's litany and the demonstration of his knowledge has Cassidy inclining her head at him, a long, measuring look directed his way, and then Emma's response with that quick snap of the head at the term 'biometrics', and that vigorous nod. There's a hint of a smile when she indicates that she will tell the king, personally, that the golems should be displayed in secured environs.
"Whatever you can do and if you have the king's ear, I appreciate it, Professor," she says. "And thank you for the consult, this was verra helpful. If nothing else, I learned sommat new."
There's a glance at Noah, before she laughs. "Methinks that if I'm facilitating contact between yourself and Noah here, I'd be remiss tae say nae tae that invitation. He'd certainly will nae forgive me if you extend such an invitation and nae pass it on. So ay, Professor. Put us on your list."
She turns then to open the door, winking over her shoulder. "Have a good afternoon, ay? And best of luck with the Exhibition."
If there is nothing else, she will head out, stepping for the stairs leading up above ground.
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
"It can't hurt," Noah says, though he doesn't seem especially convinced that guards are sufficient to the task. He's still and patient while she mulls over what he's asked, and when her answer comes back and it's permissive, some semblance of his earlier, easier smiles returns, enough to carry up to light his gaze. "That's very kind of you, prof, and you have my word I'll let you know if it turns out to be something in your area of expertise."
Only there's more. There's an offer to be pulled in on expeditions. Something else, something new, strikes a spark in his expression, restrained but impossible to disguise. It's easy to see his answer before he opens his mouth. "I am always available for expeditions."
And with that, he tips her a hat he isn't wearing, then turns to trail Cassidy out of the makeshift office and back toward the stairs with that lazy gait of his.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
"I'll walk you both out, then. I was going to get another cheese plate from Lunata anyway," Emma says.
AND THEN:
She does.
"Thank you! Be safe! Have fun storming the dungeon! Look out for the lift, it's a little damaged!"