View source for Dull Mind at the Cutting Edge

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2012/12/30
|Location=Baron
|Synopsis=Glayffe, Dark "Engineer" of Baron, tries to grasp Xanatos laser technology. 
|Cast of Characters=Glayffe
}}

A tall man stood over his workbench, hunched over. A candle reflected off the lens of goggles improperly aligned on a gas mask alongside a chaotic pile of things. Things was all he could call it. Pieces of metal bent and arranged in ways he had never seen before, let alone figure out which point went where after he removed them from the original construction. Some were already mangled beyond use as he tried to fit them back in. 

This was Baron's top priority. This mass of complete nonsense had to be integrated into their fleets. He had seen what they could do, and he was previously content at what he saw. Lines of light and fire danced in his mind's eye, having recalled the mesmerizing effect of watching them just go. The things they could burn, the things they could topple in the name of expanding Baron's borders.

Now, they mocked him in their inanimate silence. He had interrogated these devices with the inquiring mind of a man who really only had respect for the end product that had intoxicated him so. A man interested in the pie, but not the dough it's made of or the time involved. Undeterred by his lack of grasp of what seemingly arcane pieces he toyed with in his hands, he clenched his fist tightly in the frustration.

The frustration was much easier to deal with than just about every other aspect of this entire challenge, and he knew how to address it.

"Nemo! Nick!" Glayffe shouted as he threw the maligned pile of plates, screws, and devices into the air, pieces and parts raining all over his personal workshop like metallic confetti.

Any name spoken within these walls by him was one regarded with dread. It had nothing to do with the individuals who bore those names. No, Nemo and Nick were both self-proclaimed pacifists who, despite working for a military superpower, had made it a point to never individually work on weapons that could take lives. They were gentle souls whose interest in Baron's technological advancements were purely for selfless scientific advancement. Their creed had been previously honored by more benevolent overlords.

Their new division head, however, did not. Whether aware of their beliefs or not, those two names were the ones he had called more times than ever before. They struggled to find inventive ways to delay the inevitable meeting between themselves and that man. No, they could not be too busy to be visited by him. They could not be caught up by other details along the way. No, they were not allowed to be speaking with individual ship captains when he wanted them.

Both resigned to their fates, the two of them were too selfless to try and offer the other before them. The moment the doors had opened, a strong hand each grabbed them by their collars.

"Took you two long enough!" The gas masked man sneered as he escorted them off their feet before the table, all but throwing them against it. "Now you look at what I've done!"

Nemo gagged as he tried to catch his breath after the fact.

"It looks like you... broke it," Nick spoke with trepidation in his voice, unaware of his own courage in speaking those words.

"But it was already BROKEN!" Glayffe shouted as he threw his hands up. "By itself!"

"It... itself? It fell apart on its own, sir?" Nemo coughed.

"You doubt me?!" Glayffe leaned ever closer as he hefted a more intact specimen of the devices that were delivered to him - the odd metal box cannon that shot light and fire, as they called it - pointing the barrel up against Nemo's chin. "You doubt me! Don't you?"

"N-No sir!"

A click. Nick backed up against the bench, and knocked over a few well-worn tools as he had assumed the worst.

Nothing. The click passed with no flash of burning light.

"There's your proof!" Glayffe released Nemo, who exhaled in relief as he stayed seated upon the floor. As per cue, the device was quickly shoved into Nemo's hands, bowling him over. "I wager this Xanatos guy makes only garbage." Glayffe continued to sneer. "You don't put cannonballs or arrows in it. I don't know what goes in it to turn it into those fire arrows or whatever! I look inside and I don't see anything bright like those lights that come right out of it!"

"I... I don't either... sir." Nick said as he picked through the pile of things on the table, as Glayffe quickly went to lifting their hand away from it.

"Of course you don't! Worthless." Glayffe growled as he started to pace his workshop. Numerous other samples of Xanatos technology laid strewn about the floor in various states of disrepair, with numerous parchments and documentation neatly arranged off to the side that had already started to gather dust.

Nemo, having recovered from his shock, got to his feet to brush off one such fine layer. He squinted as he started to make out the text. "Sir, have you looked at--"

"Nemo! Pay attention when you are addressing the head engineer!" Glayffe reprimanded with a hard tug of his arm to make sure he was paying attention to him. "Someone who knows far better than you do!"

"Of course... I'm, I'm sorry, sir." Nemo had to fight back the urge to correct him, as Glayffe grabbed away some of the papers, crumpling them in his clenched fist. Nemo cringed as he realized where this was going.

"You two are going to go over my diagrams and put it back together exactly as I instruct you to," Glayffe commanded as he hefted up one of the larger box-like cannons, "while I figure out why the ones that still fire get so hot! If it's shooting fire as its ammunition or something, I say it should get colder! It doesn't! It's like that Xanatos guy doesn't understand how things work!"

The irony was entirely lost on Glayffe.

"Well, if you're saying it's shooting fire," Nick was hesitant to go down this train of thought, as much as the riddle of how these things worked might have helped distract him from the fear and abuse, having thought that maybe the answer could help see its use in more than shooting bright, hot lights, "should there be something in there that makes the fire?"

Glayffe stopped where he stood and turned to face down Nick. Nemo cowered, the only sympathy he could outwardly give was but the shaking of his head. Nick swallowed a lump, having wondered what pain he was about to suffer for the latest perceived slight.

"I'm a genius." Glayffe said softly. "Nick, Nemo, boys," he started to cackle as he grabbed them both close into a headlock as he let the Xanatos box tube-thing hit the floor, "I figured it out. I really did! We'll all enjoy something great to drink on me!"

Something nice and frothy, like root beer, sure seemed up their alley at this point.

"I'm gonna call the Black Mages to come do that Fira thing on the ones that aren't firing," Glayffe spoke jovially as he escored the two of them out the door, "it'll make whatever makes it fire... fire! Because it'll be hot, so it must. Genius. Great work! Huahuahua!"

"But, sir, it doesn't do anything about how hot--" Nemo was quickly shushed by Nick. At this point, this train of thought would have been perhaps the only way the two of them would have gotten out of this latest work day largely unscathed.

The same would not have been able to be said for the manufactory facility at the port within the next hour, whose resulting fire would have required the attention of almost the entire black mage forces of Baron to contain.

The pub would be busy into the wee hours of the morning.

Nemo and Nick were stuck answering what exactly happened to those who were not happy about the events.

Glayffe, proud of himself for having advanced Baron's technological understanding in his own eyes, decided to have himself a few more drinks at their expense.