2017-08-29: The Mechanic
- Log: The Mechanic
- Cast: Cassidy Cain, Dayton Derrida
- Where: November City
- Date: August 29, 2017
- Summary: It was just another night of work for engineer and mechanic Dayton Derrida until it becomes one that is reminiscent of other cautionary tales he's heard in the past; specifically the ones that start with a striking woman offering a job.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
November City was good enough of a place as any to recuperate.
It has been a few years since she has last operated in this melting pot of a town, but she finds comfort in its prevailing consistency; the air is thick with smoke from steam, cookfires and cigarettes, laced with foodstuffs, alcohol and the occasional hint of dung from all the horses that have managed to find their way here, carrying scores of Drifters and foreign merchants from all over the continent. It is the kind of messy tangle of commercial ambitions and personal agendas in which she thrives, for all of her complicated history with the Badlands themselves. Something that wouldn't surprise anyone, if they ever got to know her.
The two moons have risen high in the black-and-indigo skies of the evening by the time she decides to leave the hotel, shrugging on her battered leather jacket and making her way down Market Street; an avenue that, in spite of her estrangement, is well known to her, a slip of paper in her hand with a name and address. The desert climes are what they are - horribly humid and hot during the day, and deathly cold at night, though the crush of traffic in the center of town does wonders in staving off the latter. Her ensemble today is her typical fare, with a single addition - a champagne-colored scarf drapes loosely over her neck and shoulders to ward off the chill, framing a string of high-quality pearls veined with reddish-brown, a piece of jewelry that is downright incongruous to the rest of her rough-and-tumble wear.
She finds what she is looking for at the end of the street, nimbly dodging a pair of drunken revelers as they stumble out of a nearby saloon, reminding her that she is well due for a cigarette, which she indulges on in short order. A slender stick slips between her lips, though she doesn't light it just yet. The intent is there, however, at the appearance of a silver lighter that flips into her fingers as if by magic; a small, well-loved thing, its front plate laden with scratches that hints at its very long life in the possession of one who gets in and out of more trouble than five people combined. Its delicately detailed ouroboros gleams faintly in the moonlight, its sapphire eyes peering at her from her palm.
She really should get rid of it, she thinks.
Instead, she curls her fingers all the more tightly around it as she pushes the door open of the nondescript storefront she finds.
It smells like the typical tinkerer's workbench, to her - a hint of oil, a trace of wood and other notes; soldering iron, sawdust, diesel and coal. She doesn't even remember the last time she has needed the services of an engineer, but these strange days are only getting stranger and while it is her modus operandi to fly by the seat of her pants, it was time to exercise the foresight that she rarely uses.
Reaching the countertop, she raps a set of bandaged knuckles on top of it. Emerald eyes shot with gold flit through the space curiously, but quickly.
"Singing telegram!" she announces, because she simply can't greet anyone normally. "Dinnae ken what you did tae impress, luv, but this one's a doozy."
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
The truth is, Dayton Derrida isn't one of the usual mechanics to ply their craft in November City. The storefront he's picked out, not far from the Adventurer's Guild, was a carpenter's shop before he went out of business. It sat vacant for awhile before Day moved in and borrowed it for the short-term, figuring it would make a decent place to make contact with Drifters - after all, it's got garage space, it's on a main road and it's not too far from the places that intrepid adventurers would be expected to congregate.
At least, the Guild was the sort of place he'd have gone, back in the days when life was more adventurous.
Regardless, there's a sign in the window:
WESTWIND & DERRIDA, PROFESSIONAL MACHINISTS
The place smells rather more steely than one might expect; the scent of oil is stronger, the scent of sawdust nearly absent. Most of the objects sitting on countertops here and there are mechanical. They're mostly simple - a couple of clocks, a few wagon wheels and broken swords, a couple of gunsmoke ARMs. One more such ARM, an older-looking one of uncertain make, is sitting partly disassembled on the main counter as the man behind it diligently works on a small internal piece of it, carefully working over it with a fine-pointed tool as though cleaning away the rubbish of however many ages the thing has sat dormant.
The sound of the little bell at the door, though, interrupts the work. Pushing his goggles up to rest in his hair, he offers up an easy smile. He's a big man, in his late twenties and stocky, though that padding seems to have come over a strong muscularity that doesn't belong to an idle person.
"Oh, a singing telegram now?" he laughs warmly, folding his arms on the countertop and leaning forward with a light grin. "If this is what I get, I'll have to figure out what I did to deserve it so I can do it again next time."
The grin softens a little; he adjusts the glasses he was wearing under the goggles, canting his head to one side. "But welcome. I'm Day Derrida. Something I can help you with, miss?"
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
Promising already. He takes the singing telegram comment in stride.
"Would nae say that too quickly, lad," his pale-tressed visitor tells him gamely, her lips turning up in a smile and one unique to her, a brilliant, searing expression that cuts like a blade and liable to blind the unwary. "I've nae even tried tae serenade you yet. For all you ken, I could regale you with something akin tae the lamentations of a dying flamingo. But I should take that as a compliment, ay? Three seconds of coming at your door and you already figured you'd enjoy whatever performance I deign tae bring tae the table." Her hand presses over her chest. "Be still my heart."
There's a gesture, a thumb jabbing lightly over her shoulder as she walks further into the room with long, confident strides; blonde and young, but not too young, certainly not as green to life as those who make the general populace of November City. There's a slight incline of her head. "So which one are you, luv? Westwind or-- "
I'm Day Derrida.
He supplies his name readily. She appreciates that too.
"Well, I s'pose we'll find out if you can soon enough," she tells him. "The name's Cassidy Cain and I managed tae get ahold of sommat that's just a wee bit out of my expertise. Adept at singing, you see, but nae so good at..."
She gestures to the items sitting in his workspace. "This. Mechanics and engineering. It's a pretty big job, but I asked around the hotel and one of the bellhops said you were pretty handy with 'complicated doodads'. Whatever doodads means."
There's another glance at where the sign has been hung. "Westwind your partner?" she wonders, hitching a hip against the nearby counter, hands sliding into the pockets of her leather jacket. "He must be the majority owner if you're burning the midnight oil instead of him."
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
"I think there was a saying at some point about the customer always being right," Day says with a shake of his head and a crooked smile. "But I'll give you a chance. If you really do sound like a dying flamingo, I might regret it, but you never know until you try, right?"
Shrugging one broad shoulder, the sandy-haired machinist sets his work on the ARM aside, briefly ducking to set it on a rack beneath his side of the counter. When he comes up again, he's picked up a bolt of rough-looking cloth on which to wipe his hands, leaving a few stains of machine oil behind. They join more stains just like them, evidence enough that, even having not been here all that long, he's been a busy man. The skills of a mechanic do tend to be in demand when there's a nest of Drifters not far away.
"Partner's a good word for it. He's actually based a few towns over. This is sort of a satellite office," Day explains as he adjusts his glasses again. "And he's got a couple of major projects he's been working on, so most of the front-facing work is mine."
Moving away from the counter, Day grabs ahold of something behind it, circling out into the open. It's impossible to miss that what he grabbed was a cane, supporting a stiff left leg that doesn't quite seem to bend right at the knee, or much at all. It doesn't slow him, down, anyway; he nods towards a couple of mechanical items in the window. "I'd say I'm pretty good with that sort of thing, yes," he understates. "What is it you're looking to have done? I take it it's something a little more complicated than an ARM or a pocketwatch."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
His riposte only broadens her smile, if that is even possible. It even earns him an appreciative laugh, honeyed brows lifting towards her hairline. "Easygoing and a risk-taker," Cassidy tells him, expression brimming with good humor. "Only term I can use tae describe it if you're willing tae be serenaded by a dying flamingo. Methinks we'll get along just fine, luv."
As he turns to the task of cleaning up some of his workspace, the woman eases off the counter, taking a slow, meandering circle around the shop. She has professed just a few moments ago that she is no fine hand with mechanics, and that is very accurate, but that doesn't stop her from peering at one of his works in progress with a curious eye and a contemplative turn of her mouth. While her associates, these days, are few and far between, all of them seem to have at the very least a working knowledge as to how this works. This is not the first time she has contemplated brushing up some of her rustier skillsets for the days to come.
"Ay, well, he sounds like a busier lad than you are," she says, straightening up and angling a look at his direction. Her emerald-and-gold stare flits towards the source of his injury, before lifting upward to look him in the eye.
She says nothing for a long moment.
In those few endless stretches, all she does is look at him, lashes pulled low over the near-feline tilts of her eyes, roaming over the tangle of his hair, the height and breadth of him, the visible signs of his work coating his fingers and whatever he chooses to wear on top of his clothes, down to the cane and how he favors one side. In the ensuing silence, however, whatever she thinks - whatever she is looking for, if that - is nothing overt. But after those lengthy minutes, the smile returns.
"Might verra well be sommat I have tae show you rather than explaining it," she tells him. "Are you up for a little field trip?"
Many stories have ended poorly for Drifters and their associates that have started out the same; a mysterious visitor coming to call at the dead of night, convincing the proprietor of an establishment to go with him somewhere, never to be heard from again. She seems to be familiar with these, because she lifts her hands and spreads out her fingers.
"Ken what it sounds like, lad, but I hate tae disappoint as it's nae anything shady," she tells him with a wry grin. "If you like, you can take me hostage."
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
One of the devices sitting in the window barely even looks like it's from this time period. It's a complex assemblage of gears, concentric rings and ray-like clock hands, but it doesn't seem to be a clock. It's also ticking, and the rings are rotating within each other at different rates as the gears very slowly turn.
"In some ways," Dayton concedes with a rueful smile. "Though he's very old and doesn't travel much these days. I suppose that's why I'm the one who came to town."
There's a moment of silence that hangs in the air. He can feel the way Cassidy sizes him up - or more appropriately, practically dissecting him with her eyes. A part of him comes up with a few questions that he doesn't give voice to; finally, he breaks the silence with a slight clearing of his throat into one hand. "I hope you're not going to tell me I spilled something on my vest. I'd be mortified." He says it with a mellow smile, just a gentle tease as though to make light of that intent peering of hers.
He seems to be familiar with the stories as well; he raises his eyebrows and scratches at his cheek with one hand, then opens his mouth to crack a joke. Cassidy beats him to it. "See, you had me going for a minute there and then you spoiled it," he answers with a low laugh. "But let's hold off on the hostage-taking. Besides, my Drifting days are behind me." He can't be more than 26 or 27, from the look of him.
Stepping over to the counter, he nods and reaches across to pick up a heavy toolbag, slinging it over one shoulder. The next thing he picks up is a key ring.
"Alright. Let's take that field trip. You've got me curious now," he admits as he begins to move back towards Cassidy. The tool bag's heavy but even with the way he walks, he doesn't seem to struggle with it much at all. "Lead the way."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
See, you had me going for a minute there and then you spoiled it.
Cassidy laughs at that. "Ay, that's me," she tells him easily. "An abject ruiner of things. You'll find that out soon enough if you decide tae take the job."
The mention of his drifting days being behind him has her smile lifting on the corner of one mouth. "Just a guess, luv, but sommat tells me you can handle yourself regardless," she says, a set of dexterous fingers gesturing to his....well, everything. The state of his shoulders and arms speaks of a life accustomed to heavy lifting, and he doesn't prove her assumptions incorrect in the slightest by the way he hefts a bag full of heavy tools like anyone would handle a particularly bulky pillow.
He may be retired from the game, but she is very much an active operator, and she can scent her own like a shark in bloodied waters. "But it sounds like a story I'd be interested in hearing, if you're interested in telling it. I've known lads that are half-blind, lost fingers and limbs, even a few inconsequential organs and they would nae let go of the life. You're unique already, in the fact that you did."
His professed curiosity has her grinning again, throwing him a look over her shoulder as she moves, the door swinging open. She doesn't explain what for, or whatever it is about his response that warrants it, but as she is fond of telling those who would listen: it isn't any fun for her, if she's forced to spill all of her secrets.
"First thing's first," she tells him once they hit the open air, the fragrant-pungent smoke and the ever-present din of a million conversations at once assailing them from all directions; a typical night in November City. "We're going tae need a couple of horses."
She isn't kidding about the field trip.
Before Day could say anything further, she is already moving towards a pair of Drifters half-asleep on the porch of a closed alchemist's storefront.
A FEW MINUTES LATER...
How she managed to convince that pair of local toughs to relinquish their horses for the evening - and horses are an especially precious commodity around these parts - might very well be a mystery for the ages, but the blonde seems to have her ways. Traversing into the far outskirts of November City on the animals will at least ease some of Day's very obvious burdens, as well as he carries them like minor inconveniences at best. This close to the city's outer limits, buildings become fewer and fewer in number, some outright abandoned, each more derelict than the last.
At the end of a long, dusty trail and hidden within a cluster of old warehouses, they stop at one with a sloped roof; from their vantage point, the more populated areas of November City could be glimpsed, lamplights winking at them from a distance; distant stars that have crashed into the earth, and left to languish with the rest of mankind.
Day's present companion swings a long leg off from her horse, dropping down effortlessly. She starts moving towards large double doors, chained through the front and fitted with a padlock set with complicated tumblers. She hums while she works.
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
"Oh, there are plenty of stories," Day concedes with a laugh as he pauses at the shop door to lock the place up and turn out the lights. "I wouldn't want to tell all of them, or we'd be here all night."
Indeed, he doesn't have much time to say more than that before Cassidy's moving off.
The machinist watches her go for a couple of seconds. Maybe he shouldn't, but a part of him can't help it. Then he starts forward, shaking his head and smiling a crooked smile to himself as he bats back a few choice thoughts and refocuses his attention on the job at hand. Whatever that job turns out to be.
Without further ado, he takes off after Cassidy. Whatever's stopping him from getting the full use out of that leg, it doesn't prevent him from keeping a pretty respectable speed for a guy using a cane and carrying a backpack full of enough equipment to get a land battleship back into service on short notice.
TIME PASSES....
"With powers of persuasion like that I'm surprised you don't own half of November City by now," Day says with a curve of his eyebrows and a little smirk as his horse moves abreast with Cassidy's down that long and dustry trail. His toolpack has been slung over the back of the horse's saddle. With every step, the tools within jingle and clatter subtly against one another, and now and then he reches back to steady them with little adjustments of the way the sack rests.
As that warehouse comes into view, Day carefully swings his left leg over the saddle, dropping down to a landing and leading with his right. He plants his cane against the ground and retrieves the toolbag, slinging it over one shoulder. Starting forward again, he approaches the heavy doors, blinking a couple of times as he looks up at them, seeming to measure the scope of the warehouse based on how big the doors are and what could fit through them.
"Either it's the biggest ARM on Filgaia or you've got some interesting surprises in store," he remarks.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
"Trust me, luv. This job's big enough that there'll be plenty of time tae go over your stories piecemeal."
The padlock comes off; Cassidy tucks it in her back pocket. There's a glance over at him, that same, blinding smile returning. "As for owning half of November City, I s'pose if I had ambitions so grand, I'd be going after it. It's nae a bad investment, considering the sheer amount of traffic alone. But it's just way too much responsibility for a wee, lost lass such as myself. Besides, I ken quite a few people who'd rather jump off a cliff than address me as sommat like 'Mayor Cain'."
She puts her back into it, and shoves the large, metal appendages open.
"Besides, could you imagine me doing town hall meetings and speeches with this accent?"
The interior of the warehouse is dark, and becomes darker still when they both venture inside, and the blonde seals the doors back up. Moving further into the near, pitch-black space, a single tongue of flame erupts from her lighter. There is a gas lamp in her hand, though how she has managed to find it within such oppressive darkness is a mystery - either the woman has very good eyes, or she's memorized every inch of the space she has procured for herself.
But then again, considering what she does for a living, it probably wouldn't be surprising to some that she's managed not just to obtain a working space, but obtained one covertly - the paper trail would lead to businesses that do not exist, held by identities who do not share her name.
She offers the lantern to Day, taking a step to his side. "Hold it up," she tells him. "You're taller."
And when he does...
Shafts of light spilling from their single light source criss-cross over a metallic beast; several feet tall and much larger and heavier than the average mortal, its plate has come off in several places, exposing its intricate workings underneath. The outer armor has been forged with steel, treated by fire and reagents that the result is a slight, greenish-blue sheen with the right light and angle. The air is heavy with the strains of oil, steam, metal and fire, wisps of magic that Day may or may not be able to identify. Its head is lowered as if in supplication, or more likely resignation at whose hands it has ended up.
It is a Gear.
A very damaged, but still serviceable Gear.
"Salvaged this one from a crashed airship out in the desert," she tells Day. "As you can probably tell, it's seen better days."
And how.
"Like I said, nae one tae profess any expertise in such things, but I think it's got good bones. Would nae have been able tae bring it here if I could nae force its heavy arse off the dunes and walk however many miles it took tae get here." Now, she retrieves her lighter, drawing a deep inhale from the cigarette between her lips.
"What do you think? Lost cause?"
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
"I don't know, I feel like you could manage the speeches," Day says with a shrug of one broad shoulder and a little teasing smile. "But you might need to get someone to help you pave the roads and build the sewers. Those're pretty important duties. Good thing the mayor can delegate."
He doesn't have much of an accent in his own right. There's a hint of something there - it's hard to place where it comes from, perhaps just the slightest hint of a twang that surfaces every now and then before vanishing back beneath diction that could fit into just about any city in Ignas.
Taking the lantern when Cassidy offers it, the machinist lifts it high, letting the light spill far and wide through the vast reaches of the warehouse. It takes him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the way the lantern casts its glow directly into his glasses. Blinking, he squints into the darkness -
And as the light reveals the massive thing sitting within the bay. The average Gear is a solid 50 feet tall; the lantern light is just bright enough to illuminate the details of it. As he draws his gaze along the machine's steely lines, Day presses his lips together, his smile vanishing behind an expression of studious intent. Recognition flickers in his face like candle flame, eyes following limbs and shoulder flares towards the machine's head and upper torso, then darting towards the damaged spots in its armour, areas where plating has simply given way to reveal battered and damaged machinery behind it.
"This is an Aveh model," he says right away, holding the lantern steady as he steps towards the machine and assesses the damage with a simple once-over. Damaged, to be sure - but not so damaged that it's beyond hope, at least from what it looks like on its face. "Looks like a Trooper model... one of their standard front-line Gears. Damaged but not badly," he continues, voice a little lower. "And the fact that you got it here is a pretty good sign in and of itself. If you were able to walk it here and get it into a landing position, that means the engine and motivators are probably fine...."
He looks to Cassidy with raised eyebrows. "Aveh doesn't usually leave these behind. How you got it out, I have no idea. But it looks fixable. I'll know better once I get inside it."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
You might need to get someone to help you pave the roads and build the sewers.
Cassidy grins broadly at him, enough to force out the hidden dimples on her cheeks. "Tell you what," she tells him, sliding her hands in her pockets and rocking slightly back on her bootheels. "If I decide tae embark on a career change, you'll have your first pick of the government contracts. Though that's a lot of digging, luv. But luckily project foremen can also delegate, ay?"
Wisps of smoke leave her lips; she doesn't blow it, simply letting it escape from her mouth as she speaks, or does not and silently ruminate, which she does at the size of the task before Dayton. And as the engineer takes stock of the metal monster before him, she watches him silently in turn, angular features silhouetted by ill-light, studious eyes flitting back and forth over the characteristics and signatures he recognizes. There's a half-smile; at least, presently, she isn't disappointed yet as far as his knowledge base is concerned.
Especially when he identifies the make and model so readily.
She holds out a hand to offer to take the lamp, lifting it up so he would have both hands free to assess the damage. There's a sidelong glance at him, though not at his words, but the way he lowers his voice when he speaks. She had been waiting, specifically, for this - there are plenty of adept engineers in Filgaia, but not many know how to exercise discretion and even less are prone to doing so without a client pointing it out firsthand. Dayton Derrida, by all accounting, does.
Then again, given his self-professed past as a Drifter, he already knows the score.
The inquiring lift of his brows has her smiling ruefully. It is her turn to ease her shoulders in a slight shrug. "S'pose it's only right that I tell a story first. It was only fitting, methinks, considering just how hard Aveh tried tae kill me recently by doing its level best tae turn the desert into a sea of blood, bullets and fire. I'm nae the sort tae take too kindly tae people taking from me, y'ken, including and especially my life. And all I wanted tae do is get tae the other side! I got tae hand it tae them, luv, they've managed to bring the term 'inconvenience' tae an entirely different level."
She leans against one of the Gear's legs, gesturing for him to go ahead if he needs to get inside to look at it. "Let me ken, and once you're done with your preliminary assessments, we can negotiate, assuming you want tae take on the job."
Her virid stare lids. "Nae just looking tae repair it," she murmurs. "I'm looking tae improve it, too."
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
"I feel like I've convinced you to do something we'll all both regret and enjoy at the same time," Dayton remarks, his surprise giving way to another little smile as he pushes his good nature back to the fore. The sight of the Gear actually seemed to surprise him - aside from sparking a recognition. There's still a subtle tension about his shoulders, but as he looks back to the Gear, he breathes in and lets it out, pushing aside whatever it is was weighing down on his consciousness.
Dayton passes the lantern to Cassidy. She'll get a moment to look on as he approaches the machine, walking just a little more easily but still supporting himself with the cane. One hand comes to rest on the Gear's leg, moving across the armour plating there. Lowering himself to one knee, he squints into the underside of the knee joint, inspecting the visible machinery peeking between the calf and thigh plates, then easing back out to look over to the sly woman once more. This time there's no smile on his face, his eyes steady on her as she tells her story - that Aveh tried awfully hard to kill her as part of some battle.
The corners of Dayton's eyes tighten, and he smiles at her, a tight and slightly pained expression that seems to obscure some old hurt. "Anyone who's made it through an encounter like that with Aveh soldiers is a friend in my book," he says with a grim nod. "I'd heard something about a battle between them and Kislev but I didn't get many of the details. You're lucky you walked away alive, especially if they had their Gears in the field."
Straightening, Day takes his cane in one hand - and with surprising nimbleness for someone with a bad leg, he boosts himself up onto the machine's skirt armour, then pulls himself up the torso until he's reached the chest. It takes him shockingly little time to pop the cockpit. Once there, he takes a seat on the edge of it, left leg dangling from it. He looks down to Cassidy with a more relaxed smile, that serious moment left behind.
"These ones usually have machine guns in the chest," he calls down. "It doesn't look like they're loaded, though. And you can buy other weapons for it here in the city - ARMs, swords, spears, that sort of thing. As for improving the machine itself, I think it can be done."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
I feel like I've convinced you to do something we'll all both regret and enjoy at the same time.
"I'm certain." Good humor ignites the look in Cassidy's eyes when she turns them back towards him. "Story of my life, luv. The fine line between pleasure and suffering is woefully thin."
Through her lidded stare, she observes him as he moves - a little more fluid now that the burden of the lamp has been taken from his hands, the way he inspects the machine is taken in with that same, casual interest that isn't all too casual, in the end. To be what she is means to be armed with two things at all times: an acute sense of what she wants, and the means and skills necessary to acquire it. To Dayton's increasingly infinite credit, he makes it easy.
But it doesn't prepare her for what she sees in his eyes when he turns around at the mention of Aveh.
Ten years adventuring in Filgaia, and the seventeen years of her life prior to that, and spending quite a few of her earliest Drifter years traveling with an intellectual and behaviorist have given her enough familiarity with those who share and have shared her lot. More often than not, there are scars in each life she stumbles across, physical and emotional and in Dayton's case, it might be both. She recognizes it from where she leans, though she doesn't appear to have much interest in lingering on it. She simply hangs the lantern up in the nearest place on the Gear she can find.
It gives her a convenient excuse to turn away from him and hide her expression when she says the next: "Nae the kind of words you ought tae be using lightly, luv," she murmurs. "Friendships are just as deadly as burning, relentless enmity out here in the Badlands."
She looks over her shoulder at that, that easy smile on her lips again. "They had more than that in the field," she tells him. "Aveh had their gunships spewing fire from every available orifice, supported by Garlyle elite forces. You had the Metal Demons attempting tae destroy every single human they could find, and the Kislevi managed tae dig up a fookin' Golem. Nae the ones that were lifted from Adlehyde a few months back, y'ken. This one's a completely different beast. But ay, it was a mess out there. Lucky you tae get out of Drifterhood when you did, you could have been stuck out there, too."
The blonde conwoman inclines her head as he hops back up on the Gear, her stare following his surprisingly nimble traverse upward. "Ay, you sure that's a bum leg? Or were there monkeys in your family tree?" she calls, amusement and humor returning on her pale mien.
As for improving the machine itself, I think it can be done.
"Music tae my ears," she tells him. "Since you've nae started running away from me, I'm assuming you're open tae taking on the task. Once you've had your fill looking at it, come back down and let's have a drink."
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
A large part of Dayton Derrida's mind cannot help but wonder what the hell he's getting into with this woman. After all, she's not wrong: So many mad misadventures begin with a striking Drifter whisking her way into a place of business, with a job to do.
Leaning into the cockpit, Dayton checks the Gear's main console. He moves his hand across a panel. It has the benefit of keeping his face out of sight as Cassidy speaks of the deadliness of friendships.
Behind his glasses, the machinist closes his eyes. He sighs faintly to himself.
"Garlyle too, huh. So they've made friends from Elru," he says, glossing over the old scar on his psyche. "I'd heard about the Metal Demon attack on Adlehyde but I didn't realize they were getting into it with Aveh and Kislev. That's not good news for anyone." He shakes his head as he shifts to more fully seat himself behind the console, tapping a few controls with practiced ease. "No, this one's quite different from a Golem. We don't understand much about those... these Gears are a bit more understandable."
He cranes his neck and smirks back down at her, then, letting a bit of mirth show once more. "Hey now. When you've climbed up as many machines as I have, you figure out how to compensate for what you're missing. Besides, I only need one good leg to get this thing fixed. I think I'll help you out."
He touches one last button - and with a low rumble of internal machinery, the Gear's eyeslots flicker to life. The machine vibrates as it powers up. Day doesn't move it, though - all he wants it to look at the monitor. With a few taps he sifts through a couple of display screens, slipping a notepad out of his vest pocket and taking a few notes with a pencil stub.
Finally, after a moment or so, he powers it down and eases out of the seat. "So do you often find yourself coming across finds like this?" he calls down as he begins his descent. "Pieces of technology, I mean. Because I happen to be in the market."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
In Cassidy Cain's life, there is no such thing as coincidences.
It may very well be old superstition, and one that she only half-believes, as always more liable to keep an open mind than not, having seen many a strange thing since hitting the surface. Her meander into Westwind & Derrida had been done half on a whim, being a creature of impulse and a perpetual slave to her desires and senses, with only a semi-formed plan in her mind and the full-blown willingness to wing it and see where it leads. The fact that it has led her to the doorstep of one with a lingering grudge against Aveh was a surprise; at this point it shouldn't be, the spirits of Chance have a strange and half-disastrous hold on her, but it was.
"I think it's safe tae say that so long as sommat's human-run, the Metal Demons will try tae destroy it," she remarks dryly; hers is a principled bias, as well as an egregiously personal one, though given her fiery, impetuous nature, even her vendetta against the creatures occupy only a third in her list of souls she would snuff out of the planet if given the chance. But at his remark on not understanding much about Golems, she can't help but hide a smile...though she doesn't hide a gleam in her eye when he says the words.
She doesn't explain that either.
But his agreement to help her - and presumably with the right rate - has her letting out another laugh. "You'll find that the degrees in which I like a person will always be directly proportional tae the amount of shite I give them at a regular basis." She waits for him to clamber back down from the Gear, before picking up the lantern and moving further into the abandoned warehouse.
It isn't outfitted to be a livable space; not yet anyway, but there are tools and old machinery left over - quite possibly one of the many reasons why the blonde acquired the space. From within dusty filing cabinets, she produces a bottle of whiskey and a couple of clean tumblers, hitching a thigh against a leftover workbench to work the cork off the bottle and pour liquid into both.
"Nae usually," she tells him. "I try tae make it a point nae tae go out digging where the sun dinnae shine, but there are times in which I cannae help but get involved and find myself with shite like this." She nods to the gear. "But if you want tae come tae an arrangement regarding that, I'm open tae that, too. You can say I've a knack for acquisitions."
She winks at him at that, handing him one of the glasses.
"We can help each other out, nae averse tae it at all. It's always good tae ken people in all walks of life, I've found. Besides, I learn a lot more talking tae someone outside of the business."
A palm flattens behind her, leaning back on the seat. "So color me curious," she begins. "What did Aveh do tae you?"
Just because she seemed disinterested from earlier doesn't mean she is; as always, looks are deceiving.
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
Sometimes it's funny how the whims of fortune - or at least handy plot-writers - can bring these little threads together into comfortable knots.
Easing down the Trooper's torso armour, Dayton drops down to rest on the machine's skirt plate, then hops the rest of the short distance down, landing on his right leg with his cane planted on the ground. His left knee flexes as he comes down; he winces, grimacing visibly, before straightening up again and giving the bad leg a brisk shake as though to try and chase the pain out of it.
"I haven't run into many of them. Metal Demons, I mean. I've seen plenty of artifacts from the Wars and run into a few old Metal Beasts, but most people thought the Metal Demons were a thing of the past," he admits as he begins to move forward once more, falling into step with Cassidy as she ventures deeper into the old warehouse. Livable or not, he doesn't seem uncomfortable with the place.
Quite the contrary - he brushes a bit of dust off the table and pulls up an old chair, resting his cane against it and dropping his toolbag to the other side before settling in. "I may have to arrange something with you, then," he says with a crooked smile, reaching out to take a glass.
"Actually, I set up shop in town because I was looking for Drifters," he admits. "Professor Westwind and I have a couple of project we're working on that could benefit from some of the secrets of the ancients. The society from the Metal Demon Wars was ahead of ours in a lot of ways, including machines. If we can recover some of the things they could do...."
Dayton trails off, swirling his drink around his glass. One finger taps against the brim of it, before he tilts his head back and takes a brisk drink.
When he sets the glass down, he rests an elbow on the table and sighs, resting his cheek in one palm. "I made the mistake a couple of years ago of trying to beat them to an old wreck. They caught some friends and I on the way out and decided to make it a fight. I lost some good friends that day." He grimaces. "Nearly lost a leg, too," he says, nodding towards the cane leaning against his seat.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
...most people thought the Metal Demons were a thing of the past.
"Should have stayed there," Cassidy murmurs, darkness hooding her stare as she takes a quiet pull of her whiskey. "I was in Adlehyde when they decided tae announce their return tae the world. It ended poorly for many. This point in my life, though, I've fought a few. If you need pieces of them tae study, I can certainly provide. It's a bloody business, ay, but a lass' got tae make a living, somehow."
The memory of tangling with not one, but two in the same bout - and by those high enough in their food chain to warrant some caution - burns with the mesh of injuries on her front, hidden by bandages and layers of clothing. It brings a more sardonic twist to her smile.
His comfort in his present environs, despite most of it in a thick cover of ominous darkness with nothing but a single lantern for illumination, is rather telling, looking so at home in an abandoned chop shop as he does. That was promising also.
"They sound like serious undertakings, your projects," she tells him. "At least serious enough tae warrant the use of ancient but advanced technology. That always been a thing of yours?" A teasing grin, a lift of her brows. "A scholar and a Drifter before you decided tae abandon the latter out of necessity?"
Another pull from her drink. Long legs cross at the knee from where she's perched on the table, a deft flick of her wrist sending the amber liquid within the glassine receptacle in an almost hypnotic swirl. "Well, if you're looking for Drifters, you found one. Whatever I find out there, I'll toss your way. It's the least I can do. After all, what I'm paying for you tae do is nae easy by the stretch of it." There's a glance towards the Gear. "Once we get this under way, would like for it tae be improved enough that it moves like me, but hits harder."
She laughs suddenly. "Nae that I'm much tae look at on the field." Her eyes glitter at him as she speaks. "I'm verra harmless."
Very.
Amusement tempers on the edges in light of the story he tells her, though she doesn't offer anything trite - no condolences or I'm sorrys, nothing even so much as a look of sympathy, never one prone to letting anyone glimpse softer emotions on her features, if they even exist within this woman, who is more likely to unleash the full force of her seemingly endless, white-hot intensity than the warm, glowing embers that most normal people prefer. She tilts her head back, pale gold spilling from her shoulders as she turns those eyes to a ceiling that she cannot glimpse. In this poorly lit room, framed by nigh-near impenetrable black, she says nothing for a while.
When she speaks next, it's a soft, deliberate thing, her well-practiced contralto carrying in the space between them.
"Are you interested in balancing the books, as far as Aveh is concerned?" she wonders.
She may be utterly incapable of sympathy - nobody knows, not really. But what she is offering is unmistakeable.
A chance to settle some outstanding scores.
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
The shadow that dances across Cassidy's face might be the first real break in the woman's personality Day's seen so far. He tilts his head a couple of degrees as he listens to her. She's let her smile down for just a moment - enough to reveal that beyond the teasing and the slyness there's someone who's been bruised just as badly as many an unfortunate Drifter, and perhaps worse, given the sheer magnitude of the assault on Adlehyde.
At least, if even half the stories are true, anyway - Dayton had missed it by virtue of simply not being in the area.
Slowly, Dayton swirls the booze around his glass, letting it slosh around the edges of it. A mellow smile tugs at her lips again at the talk of scholarship. "I'll take the credit you give me, but a lot of Drifters become familiar with ancient technology over the years. There's a lot hidden out there in the world. It's a little different for me, though - coming from a family of Drifters and mechanics."
Looking back towards the Gear, he nods slowly. "I'd appreciate the help," he admits. "Getting some arms and legs in the field would make my work a lot easier. I'm familiar with some interesting places worth exploring. I can make it worth a Drifter's while - both in terms of loot and in terms of gella, if it comes to that." He's looking back to her by now, watching that mirth come back up, like a shield over her softer emotions.
Not one to give him more than a glimpse, he realizes. Lifting his glass, he takes a slow sip, eyes holding on her above the brim of it.
"Someday, perhaps," he says with a slow shrug of his shoulders. "If that's the business you're in, I'd say you've found yourself a mechanic. If you're looking for a fighting companion, though, I'm the wrong man for that."
A little smirk once more rises to his face; a touch of mirth dances behind his eyes, seemingly magnified by the lenses of his glasses. Maybe it's just the lantern light glittering in their frames. "I am the right man to get your Gear running the way you want it, though. Better than it was to begin with."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
He speaks of family and it prompts Cassidy to bury her lips against her tumbler again, her eyes cast towards the Gear. "Family business, then," she wonders. "I've been around a while, luv, the usual story is a lad who decided farming dinnae agree with him and decided tae fly off tae bold adventure with nae anything but a sack and his hopes and dreams." It's a jest, that grin returning as well as a puckish tilt of her head. "Shame on you for nae following the script. Now I dinnae ken what tae expect."
That grin broadens. "Now you've done it, luv. Now I've got my eye on you. Nae just any eye. My one good eye." She gestures to her left, where that small beauty mark rests on the faintly uptilted corner. "Has tae be, I think my other one might be a wee bit myopic." Though it's difficult to tell whether she's being serious or not.
A hand waves somewhat dismissively to the side. "If I wanted a fighting companion, I'd have walked out of your shop the moment I saw that leg," she tells him. "I was nae kidding about how I often learn more with someone outside of the business than within. Nae going tae gloss over the fact that conflicts will probably be a familiar thing, different lives and all, but I'm about fifteen percent sure we can at least discuss whatever differences of opinion that are inevitable like a couple of adults." Though what kind of adults is up in the air, but as always, she thrives in surprises.
"But ay, and you've got yourself a..." A pause, and another laugh. "Whatever the bloody hell I am, I s'pose." She extends her glass towards him for a toast, and if he allows it, she clinks the edge of her tumbler against his, before taking another swallow of her whiskey. Through it, she gives him a long, level look from above her glass.
Someday, perhaps.
"Let me ken," she murmurs. "When you decide. Consider it a credit line of faith, luv. Every relationship in Filgaia always starts out like this...though how it ends is always a touch more nebulous. Still, nae anything can be established without some kind of risk and I'm the kind that gets addicted tae it, rather easily."
Her smile returns, a slanted, lopsided thing to reflect the mirth in his eyes. "Ach, cocky in that, are you?" she observes. "Good. Was nae the kind tae get along with the ones who never seem tae be sure of anything. I'd say something typical about how lasses find confidence in lads, but I think you've already heard the usual drivel. Nae exactly a green stripling from an isolated farming village, are you?"
<Pose Tracker> Dayton Derrida has posed.
He's chided, however playfully, for going off the script. With a little laugh, Dayton gives his head a shake, pushing a hand up to rake his sandy hair away from his forehead with rough fingers. "I think I would go mad living on a farm," he confesses. "I don't know the first thing about crops and tilling fields. But I do know a few things about ARMsmithing and fixing and building vehicles. If that means I'm not on script, I guess I'm guilty of it. Besides...."
With a smirk, he adjusts his glasses, pushing them up his nose a little ways. "I get a feeling just from talking to you this little while that you're the kind of person who likes a surprise or two in the people in your life."
Once again, the engineer lifts his glass, tapping his free hand against the edge of it. The gentle ting of nails on glass can be faintly heard, a simple bit of white noise over the quiet, lantern-lit conversation. When Cassidy holds her glass out, Dayton extends his in turn.
Glass clinks against glass, the sound distinctly crystalline, almost incongruously so in the dark, abandoned warehouse. He lifts the vessel for a steady drink. When she holds that look on him, his eyes focus back, steady behind the lenses of those glasses.
He sets the glass down in front of him and rests an elbow on the table. "I'm sure I'll figure out what you are as we go along. We'll see where things go. I'd hate to try and predict too much. I like a good surprise too."
At the last, though, Dayton can't keep from chuckling richly, giving his head a brisk shake. "Guild Galad's not really a farm town, no. There's a village I work out of but I'm hardly there to farm. And I think you can get a pretty good idea of how green I might or might not be." Again he flashes a smile, this one slightly teasing as he taps a finger against the brim of his glass, much of which he's emptied.
"I'll let you know," he says, then. "We'll start with your Gear. And drinks. Always drinks."
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.
You're the kind of person who likes a surprise or two in the people in your life.
"Ach, getting that predictable, am I?" Cassidy wonders with a laugh, draining the last of her glass. "Methinks might be the time tae switch it up. I think the next time I come intae your shop tae see how you're doing, I'll dress up as a nun and you can crack all the jokes you like about me discovering some very bad habits." Remarkably, she doesn't tell him that he's wrong in his assessments; if anything, her comments only speak to the fact that he isn't.
But when he professes a liking for surprises, she inclines her head at him. "Ay. It should be interesting, too, tae find out whether you're the kind who thrives in all kinds." The good surprises and the bad. Both follow her very consistently, but perhaps out of deference to what he had just confessed, she doesn't tell him that.
She slides off the desk at that, moving back to the filing cabinet and depositing the rest of the whiskey within. Talk of Guild Galad has her lifting her brows. "Ay? I was born in Aquvy," she tells him. "Though it's been years since I've been there. Had an opportunity tae return there, at the height of the Adlehyde disaster. To wait it out until it all blows over. In retrospect, I should have gone - these days, I kind of regret nae going as it was nae pretty, what happened there. Life could have been a lot more palatable with a cold drink in a coconut. Maybe with one of those wee umbrellas."
And I think you can get a pretty good idea of how green I might or might not be.
There's a sudden laugh, all the more incongruous in the dark and silent space, and one as bright as her smiles. "Someone who looks like you?" she wonders, angling him an arch look. "Nae verra, methinks."
She gestures to the hulking machine lying in wait for them; in this part of the warehouse and with nothing but a single light, it is difficult to see, but both of them know it's there.
"But ay, we'll start with that. And drinks. Though methinks we can do that in town while taking in the local color." She picks up the lamp and opens it up.
"After all, it's been a while since I was last in November City," she tells him. "Some part of me's missed it."
And with that, her lips purse, blowing out that single flame.