2022-12-18: An Expert's Opinion

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  • Log: An Expert's Opinion
  • Cast: Xantia, Billy Lee Black
  • Where: The Karlsefni
  • Date: December 18, 2022
  • Summary: Xantia seeks out Billy to learn more about the damage to her second ARM, and how it might be repaired.

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

THE TIME: Shortly before the Black Wolves' departure for Spira to facilitate the meeting between Shevat and the Al Bhed.

THE PLACE: One of the Karlsefni's common areas.

THE SITUATION: Absolutely nothing of note is going on, unless you count one Billy Lee Black seated at one of the tables, engaged in some weapon maintenance.

It's a fair enough use of the place. Technically this area is meant for entertainment, but in practice it's been more of a whatever-the-heck-you-want room. Sparsely filled with only a few tables and chairs in addition to a dart board, the only thing that provides some clue as to what it was originally meant for. That's what happens when you have a much bigger ship than you have a crew, and it's more of a mobile base where everyone may have their own quarters, but they sure aren't all staying there for extended lengths at a time. It's just more practical to be flexible in the purposes of each individual area.

Xantia has far too much trouble staying still to stay at the ship for an extended period of time unless a) something's wrong with her or b) a mission is in the works. Thankfully it's situation b this time! She absolutely wants to be present for the forging of a very important alliance, especially given the common foe involved: Solaris. Nothing can be allowed to mess that up.

But that's hardly the only thing on Xantia's mind. Recently she has come into the possession of a very important item. It's for that reason that she peeks into the common area now, smiling as she spots the one she's been looking for. She's not exactly trying to be quiet in her approach, though it would be possible not to take notice of her until she's suddenly right there at Billy's table, waiting until that moment to utter a cheerful, "Hi, Billy!" Not one to waste any time on small talk, she proceeds to immediately ask the question most relevant to her current interests. "You know a lot about ARMs, right?"

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

Billy's a wanderer - professionally, even! - but when the ship is available to be home base, he's been using it. He knows in his heart that if he stops moving at the orphanage too long, he will have trouble leaving. He can tell his father is only not fully calcifying in Shevat thanks to Primera being at his side. And THERE's a whole set of thoughts he needs to not linger on!

Besides, much like Xantia, he has no intention of missing an alliance so crucial. SO he's cleaning his guns. More important for him than most, since so many of his weapons are not, in the sense of being mysterious tools of mysterious nature, ARMs. His Ether guns are split open in front of him at the moment, the Solaris technology fairly obviously not what goes into an ordinary gunsmoke. His two Colts are off to the side, awaiting treatment later.

He looks up at the greeting, though, and his pale face splits into a thin smile. He's not much for beaming brightly, after all. "Xantia," he says in greeting, and sets aside a small component, an ether accelerator that will later fit into the weapon's barrel.

Straight to the point. "A good bit," he says, nodding. "The Ethos were the primary source of ARM distribution, before..." ...he flicks his wrist and fingertips and doesn't mention the smoldering crater of a cathedral in the room. "I wasn't in the engineering section, but you pick up more than a little."

He sets aside the barrel itself, and sets his hands to the table so he can look at Xantia directly. "Something you'd like me to look at?"

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

After laying down her burning question, Xantia's gaze drifts down to the table, gazing at the Ether gun's components. There's a measure of interest there, but absolutely no recognition - she doesn't know what any of those parts actually do. Like so often, she can't help but wonder if that's knowledge she never had, or no longer has. All things considered, it feels like she should know at least a little more than the nothing she knows now. Before her mind can go much further in wondering about the relations to her situation, Billy has asked her a question in turn, causing her gaze to snap back to meet his.

"Ah-- yes, actually!" This does feel a little awkward now, prompting her to rub the back of her neck. "I, um. I don't mean to bring up bad memories or anything, but. The Ethos were the ones I used to go to for this, so..."

...So now Billy is one of the few people left that she can turn to, is the thought she doesn't finish. Xantia may have learned what tact is over the years, but it's not something she's too comfortable in wielding. She quickly shakes her head, abandoning that line of thought to get back to the matter at hand.

"Anyway! It's about--" She reaches for a pouch at her waist, but stops halfway, as another thought strikes her. "Wait. Have you ever seen what my ARM looks like? I mean... what it really looks like?"

Just saying that may connect a few dots. Xantia's bracers look for all the world like regular metal bracers meant to go with the armor she wears everywhere she goes. But the right one has a curious raised protrusion that the energy blade she uses comes out of. The exact nature of which certainly something that may have been cause for wonder.

The ruse is made clear when Xantia wordlessly unclasps her right bracer, turns it over in her hand, and undoes a second clasp on the inside. This allows for effortless removal of the outer shell, revealing the real thing beneath, completely made of a jet-black metal, clearly not meant to be ornamental, but designed purely as a weapon. Xantia places it on the table for Billy's inspection.

This is quite clearly not the ancient sort of ARM, but more recently fabricated, that much is immediately obvious. It's almost certainly Ether-based in some fashion. Which means there are only a few places this could have come from.

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

"It's fine," Billy says, though the smile is perhaps a bit strained. "It's a reality we must live with. I'm happy to assist."

And then: Huh, its true form? "I have not," he says, and then does. He clears his workspace - quickly reassembling his weapon again in mere seconds so he can set it aside and make room for Xantia's ARM.

He runs his thumb along it, hunting for familiar maintenance indicators - screws, seams. "Recent make," he mutters. "It's not Collapse style. But it's not right for a Demon War-era ARM, either. The seals are all wrong. That looks like an Ether-treated bore up front, but it's not Gebler or Solaris Etone issue." Squint. He pulls it away, holding it at a distance to regard the ominously cold black of the metal. "Not really Shevat's style, either...."

He flicks his eyes to Xantia. "Solaris one-off?" he guesses.

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Xantia follows Billy's inspection with interest, but again, little understanding. Her eyes widen a bit, surprised at how much he's able to tell just by looking at it from the outside. The question he asks though... Xantia can only give an apologetic shrug. "Well... nobody's been able to tell me that. And I don't remember, of course. ...Kind of hope it has nothing to do with Solaris."

That would have some alarming implications. Although from what she's been able to learn, it doesn't seem likely that Xantia has any ties to Solaris, there's no denying that Solaris is capable of creating ARMs that generate energy blades. A notable example being Grigori's weapon.

As for this one, at its base is a small service panel that can be removed, but there's no obvious way to fully take it apart the way Billy dismantles his guns. The design seems very much intended to allow for only limited access to its internal workings. Something to hide, perhaps...?

In the mean time, Xantia has turned her attention back to her waist pouch. "Although, I guess now I know that it wasn't a one-off... there were at least two."

With that, she takes out the object that this was ultimately all about, placing it on the table as well. It's unmistakably the same bracer, even if the resemblance isn't as close as it should be. The metal may be dark to begin with, but this one is just plain blackened, and slightly bent out of shape. "Apparently it got damaged in some kind of big electrical discharge?" Xantia mentions, not knowing if that much would be obvious to Billy. It wasn't to her, until Azoth identified it. Which brings her to the heart of the matter. "Is there any way to fix it?"

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

"Ah," Billy says, and nods. "I understand. We all have our demons with them. Maybe an expert would be able to tell you from the construction style, but...I just happen to have some familiarity with Solaris construction." He reaches over to indicate his Ether guns.

He does pop that service panel, though he frowns at what he finds. "Looks like the only serviceable parts are...think that's the ether cycler? Usually a case like this will allow access to just a few things that can burn out during normal use and need replacing." He shakes his head. "It can probably be opened further, but I suspect you'd need a unique tool. Might even have been custom made by the creator just for this."

He sets it down. And then the bombshell is: A second one.

This one he handles with actually greater care, assessing it from various angles. He's good at this - never puts his face in front of the emitter, despite being nominally damaged beyond use.

Then he goes for the service panel again. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a small multitool with a prying lever that folds out. "Let's see what we've got in here."

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Demons. A fitting description, Xantia supposes. With how she keeps flying off the handle in matters of Solaris, you'd think she regards them as demons. "I may not know the details, but... I feel very sure that I was never on friendly terms with Solaris, at least. I guess that doesn't mean I couldn't have gotten something that belonged to them, but..."

Guesswork. That's all it ever is. She can never remember things clearly enough to be completely sure of anything. The only thing she can say with certainty: "As far as I can recall, I've always had this. I was wearing it when they found me, unconscious in the desert." Her brow furrows as she realizes that now even that much is uncertain - the one who told her this is not someone she would consider trustworthy anymore.

The inside of the bracer, as far as it can be seen, is dominated by a mess of wiring. Apparently the connecting elements are most of what was considered important for the purposes of maintenance, leaving what they connect to hidden behind non-removable panels. It isn't obvious how the weapon actually works just by looking at this section of its internals, which may well have been the point. "That's what they opened before," she comments, staying away from specifying that she's speaking of the Ethos. "This bracer used to be broken too. They said they did what they could, but weren't sure how to activate it, so they couldn't be sure if whatever it is they did was enough. I guess it was, though it took me a while to remember how it worked."

This is all in regards to the one bracer she had originally, of course. As Billy examines the second one, she remarks, "I only got this one recently. Fei gave it to me, and he got it from Xenia." She assumes that Billy knows about her self-proclaimed 'sister', even if he hasn't been personally involved in the related incidents. "Apparently it's somehow important to learning more about my past. I don't know how yet, but... I figure getting it to work again is a good start."

As for that matter... it's an easy comparison between both bracers to see what's wrong with this one, although it's really not even necessary. Things have shorted out but good in the second one, most of its wiring badly burnt out. It's impossible to say whether fixing this would be enough to fix the entire thing, but it definitely won't work until it is.

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

"Mostly wiring," Billy mutters. He's a good listener, though. "That makes Shevat or the Veruni the most likely directions, I suppose." ...or Wels. He decides not to even voice that one, instead using another tool to poke around the space without inserting his fingers. "Functions are intentionally hidden. You'd need a world-class ARMs Meister to have any chance of getting anything useful from this side." Maybe they could guess based on the way the circuit would need to be structured? But even that would be a guess. As far as Billy can figure, anyway.

The second, though... "Your so-called sister," he affirms. "I've only got the summary version, I am afraid, but I know that much."

Then he says, "Oh," because he finally actually looked at the inside. "Well there's your problem," he says, with a laugh. An engineer's joke, perhaps. "The wiring's all fried. Electrical overload's just about the only thing I can think of that would do this." Hn. "...This is a bit more technical than I'd normally service myself," he admits. "But...fixing these insides is at least step one. Without access to the next layers, I can't tell if anything deeper down is broken, but nothing's even going to turn on until we fix all this."

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Shevat. Xantia decides not to broach that topic. While firmly supportive of the alliance against Solaris, she hasn't quite sorted out her feelings on that nation as a whole. As far as she knows, Shevat doesn't know her. But they once knew someone who looked like her. Plenty of evidence to suggest some kind of connection, even if she doesn't know what it is. She's not convinced she's been told the entire story. The Veruni though... that's a new possibility to consider. "The Veruni could make something like this? Huh."

She looks understandably worried at the words 'world-class ARMs Meister'. That doesn't sound like someone easy to find. Will she need to add another item to the growing list of things that may take a long time to find? Scrambling for something else that might help, she remarks, "Well, um... whatever's in there, it responds to Ether, I know that much. I... can't really describe how I use it, but it's my own Ether that powers it, I'm pretty sure."

On the matter of Xenia, she elaborates a bit further on the more recent happenings. "Well, in case you hadn't heard that part yet, it turns out her body is artificial. She's... almost like Emeralda, but not quite. So she's not actual family. They made a copy of me. Whoever 'they' are." She's oddly matter-of-fact about this, like she's already accepted it and no longer considers it a big deal. This is far from the truth, she just has other things she feels more worried about at present. One can only agonize over so much at a time.

When Billy opens up the second bracer and remarks on the state it's in, Xantia bends forward a bit, to see the wires for herself. "...I see what you mean. If only I could remember what happened to cause this, exactly..." The implication here is that she's positive that she saw it happen. Given the hint that this holds the key to her past, it's logical to assume the cause of the damage might be that key.

Xantia scratches her head, not knowing the first thing about this sort of repairs. "Well... I guess maybe that was the thing the Ethos were able to do for me before?" Crap, she said it. Just keep going Xantia, gloss over it. "Sounds like a worth a try, anyway! Maybe fixing the wires will be enough!"

After a short pause, the obvious question follows. "...Can you fix the wires? I have no idea what you'd need for something like that."

<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.

"Possible," Billy affirms, of the possible Veruni make. "They have at least some Ether technology. Not sure how likely it is, but it's not zero, at least."

He nods to her summary of how she uses it, using that poker tool to assess the insides. Not much to say on the subject of Ether use. He's not going to try and activate it, anyway. But... He does look over at the description of Xenia, and nods with a small smile. "We can discuss that later, perhaps," he suggests. Rather than brushing it off, encouraging her to find time to unpack that whole issue separate from this one, with him if she likes. "I hadn't heard that much yet."

Moving on to the second bracer, he considers it carefully. But, he's only as much of an engineer as a man who uses such weapons daily must be. He holds the device carefully, shifting wires with the small tool to look at the connections. "They don't appear to require specific tools to restore the connection...I might be able to, but we'd need good wires to replace them with in the first place."

He sets it down to turn his attention more fully on Xantia. "You might have more luck with a dedicated ARMs Meister," he says. "They tend to have stock for repairs, or at least a more solid line on getting one. My own supply line has..."

That same open-handed gesture, indicating the dire fate of his order without calling it completely into the conversation. "Well," he says instead.