Timestamp: 3rd Day of Autumn, 515 A.V.
Location: Lucis & Lucis
Elysium Hall was far too open and exposed, Alses had decided.
She'd known this for a while, if truth were told – the Shinya had signally failed to defend her when it had really counted, and the open and isolated nature of her home, whilst ensuring her personal privacy and making it easy to spot people approaching, it also meant she was some way away from actual help should something go wrong.
And since there was no practical way to move the entirety of Elysium Hall closer to the rest of Lhavit – not that she'd have wanted to do it anyway, being a creature who valued peace and quiet in her personal life – that meant there had to be something else done about the glaring holes in her security.
She'd considered the problem for some time, trying to fit her head into the mindset of a thief. It hadn't worked very well; Alses had limited experience of larceny – or, to be more accurate, none – from the point of view of the larcenor, and that had made things...more difficult.
In the end, she'd called on what she knew and what she'd been able to piece together from Brandon Blackwing's damnably successful kidnapping, what holes it had exposed in the glittering Shinya methods.
Alses fervently hoped that by learning from those mistakes she'd not suffer another indignity – or worse – any time soon.
The biggest single thing – aside from the splendid isolation of Elysium Hall – had to be the windows. Big windows and plenty of them had been the order of the day to the architects when the place had been designed and built; they ran in long lines down the entire body of the house, their many panes glittering and gleaming in the sun. Alses loved them; they flooded her rooms with an abundance of light, beautiful rich colours and sparkling metal all glowing so that the baroque magnificence she favoured hit the eye like a firework.
They were also, as bitter experience demonstrated, a glaring security flaw. A thief or other ne'er-do-well could – with sufficient wit and skill and preparation – sneak through the park and break a window, and then she would be entirely at their mercy.
Her staff were also a consideration; Silver wasn't a fighter, and he was getting on in years. All well and fine for a butler, less so for any form of guard. That wasn't what she paid him for; that he chose to try and defend her spoke well for his loyalty and integrity, but by Syna's flaming knickers she shouldn't have to rely on him!
Thus, her current line of thinking; something that could seal up that security hole, something that would still let her enjoy the light and beauty of the windows whilst keeping herself safe.
Which had led to her thinking about shutters, and armour, and all the things that came with it.
Despite her forays into Animation, and the almost-mandatory understanding of the rudiments of devices that went with the discipline, Alses was not particularly mechanically-minded – or rather, she lacked the experience and knowledge to say whether something was feasible or not.
Her vague idea was for some sort of skin of metal that could cover the windows and be retracted during the day. Whether such a thing was doable or not...that was for more experienced hands and brains than she to decide.
Thus, a break from her work as Councillor Radiant, and a pleasant walk towards the compound of buildings that was Lucis & Lucis, Lhavit's resident noted gadgeteering enterprise, the people who kept the water flowing, the sewage out of sight and managed a thousand and one other, lesser marvels with their only ingredients being metal and the ingenuity of hand and brain.
Strange sounds and smells filled the air close to the gadgeteering workshops; smoke and grease and the tang of hot metal mixed with odder things; the sharp acridity of acids, the bitter tang of ink, thick sweetness of lubricating oil and a thousand other things besides, all working together to make the complex devices on which Lucis & Lucis thrived – making life easier, or in some cases possible – for those with the money to afford their skilled and specialised services.
Mr. Lucis had consulted on the construction of Elysium Hall; his was the work that ensured Alses had her piping-hot baths, and that the various wastes and effluvia produced by her household vanished away smoothly, out of sight and out of mind. He had also been Maeki's preferred supplier of automaton shells and all the other, more specialised tools of her trade. Having worked by proxy with his products, Alses had a healthy respect for the man and for the quality of the workmanship evident in all of his devices.
Small wonder, then, that he was her first port of call to discuss her idea.
Stepping into the actual shop portion of Lucis & Lucis was always like stepping into a cave of wonders; glittering automata lined the shelves, lovingly polished and gleaming, silver and bronze and brass and gems all aglow in the strong, even light that showed everything off to the best of effects, the metallic shimmer rivalling her own fire-opal skin and scintillating horns.
There were toys and other frivolities in amongst the more serious creations, cheery, brightly-lacquered and enamelled things to delight the young; clockwork Shinya and jack-in-the-boxes and musical boxes of one flavour or another.
And over it all, bringing motion and life and a steady, beating susurrus of sound, there were the clocks, their collective ticks a rippling thrum heard in the ears and felt in the bones, everything on display from an enormous and elaborate emperor-clock down to a tiny timepiece small enough to fit in a pocket.
“Mr. Lucis?” Alses called into the gadget-laden depths of the shop, her voice pitched to cut through the liquid sound of Tanroa's river. “We wish to discuss a commission with you.”
Location: Lucis & Lucis
Elysium Hall was far too open and exposed, Alses had decided.
She'd known this for a while, if truth were told – the Shinya had signally failed to defend her when it had really counted, and the open and isolated nature of her home, whilst ensuring her personal privacy and making it easy to spot people approaching, it also meant she was some way away from actual help should something go wrong.
And since there was no practical way to move the entirety of Elysium Hall closer to the rest of Lhavit – not that she'd have wanted to do it anyway, being a creature who valued peace and quiet in her personal life – that meant there had to be something else done about the glaring holes in her security.
She'd considered the problem for some time, trying to fit her head into the mindset of a thief. It hadn't worked very well; Alses had limited experience of larceny – or, to be more accurate, none – from the point of view of the larcenor, and that had made things...more difficult.
In the end, she'd called on what she knew and what she'd been able to piece together from Brandon Blackwing's damnably successful kidnapping, what holes it had exposed in the glittering Shinya methods.
Alses fervently hoped that by learning from those mistakes she'd not suffer another indignity – or worse – any time soon.
The biggest single thing – aside from the splendid isolation of Elysium Hall – had to be the windows. Big windows and plenty of them had been the order of the day to the architects when the place had been designed and built; they ran in long lines down the entire body of the house, their many panes glittering and gleaming in the sun. Alses loved them; they flooded her rooms with an abundance of light, beautiful rich colours and sparkling metal all glowing so that the baroque magnificence she favoured hit the eye like a firework.
They were also, as bitter experience demonstrated, a glaring security flaw. A thief or other ne'er-do-well could – with sufficient wit and skill and preparation – sneak through the park and break a window, and then she would be entirely at their mercy.
Her staff were also a consideration; Silver wasn't a fighter, and he was getting on in years. All well and fine for a butler, less so for any form of guard. That wasn't what she paid him for; that he chose to try and defend her spoke well for his loyalty and integrity, but by Syna's flaming knickers she shouldn't have to rely on him!
Thus, her current line of thinking; something that could seal up that security hole, something that would still let her enjoy the light and beauty of the windows whilst keeping herself safe.
Which had led to her thinking about shutters, and armour, and all the things that came with it.
Despite her forays into Animation, and the almost-mandatory understanding of the rudiments of devices that went with the discipline, Alses was not particularly mechanically-minded – or rather, she lacked the experience and knowledge to say whether something was feasible or not.
Her vague idea was for some sort of skin of metal that could cover the windows and be retracted during the day. Whether such a thing was doable or not...that was for more experienced hands and brains than she to decide.
Thus, a break from her work as Councillor Radiant, and a pleasant walk towards the compound of buildings that was Lucis & Lucis, Lhavit's resident noted gadgeteering enterprise, the people who kept the water flowing, the sewage out of sight and managed a thousand and one other, lesser marvels with their only ingredients being metal and the ingenuity of hand and brain.
Strange sounds and smells filled the air close to the gadgeteering workshops; smoke and grease and the tang of hot metal mixed with odder things; the sharp acridity of acids, the bitter tang of ink, thick sweetness of lubricating oil and a thousand other things besides, all working together to make the complex devices on which Lucis & Lucis thrived – making life easier, or in some cases possible – for those with the money to afford their skilled and specialised services.
Mr. Lucis had consulted on the construction of Elysium Hall; his was the work that ensured Alses had her piping-hot baths, and that the various wastes and effluvia produced by her household vanished away smoothly, out of sight and out of mind. He had also been Maeki's preferred supplier of automaton shells and all the other, more specialised tools of her trade. Having worked by proxy with his products, Alses had a healthy respect for the man and for the quality of the workmanship evident in all of his devices.
Small wonder, then, that he was her first port of call to discuss her idea.
Stepping into the actual shop portion of Lucis & Lucis was always like stepping into a cave of wonders; glittering automata lined the shelves, lovingly polished and gleaming, silver and bronze and brass and gems all aglow in the strong, even light that showed everything off to the best of effects, the metallic shimmer rivalling her own fire-opal skin and scintillating horns.
There were toys and other frivolities in amongst the more serious creations, cheery, brightly-lacquered and enamelled things to delight the young; clockwork Shinya and jack-in-the-boxes and musical boxes of one flavour or another.
And over it all, bringing motion and life and a steady, beating susurrus of sound, there were the clocks, their collective ticks a rippling thrum heard in the ears and felt in the bones, everything on display from an enormous and elaborate emperor-clock down to a tiny timepiece small enough to fit in a pocket.
“Mr. Lucis?” Alses called into the gadget-laden depths of the shop, her voice pitched to cut through the liquid sound of Tanroa's river. “We wish to discuss a commission with you.”
