say bye to kris kringle, it's a mingle!

[geonomy]

Who: The Vanquish crew and visitors!
Broadcast: Nein?
Action: On the Vanquish lollipop, and around it maybe!
When: During the month of January

[Hey crew! It looks like there's some new changes that have come over the ship as well as a couple of new crewmates from the past shuffle or two! Have you been enjoying the planet, or is it too cold for you? Have you caught a nasty cold like your poor captain a few posts down, or are you a Vanquish member and are fine? Come along for a mingle, let the viewers see what you're up to! And also meet the tiniest, cutest crew member too!]

Comments

[thebloodseal]

Oh! These are alchemic circles. [He indicated the incomplete one.] I can normally clap my hands to transmute, but most alchemists need a drawn circle to perform alchemy. The circle contains the power of the transmutation, and the runes written around the edge are a little like instructions that tell the material what to do. Like... [He sketched some more, then pressed his hand to the edge of the circle, making the paper turn into an origami bird.]

[geonomy]

... Whooooa.

[Clay puts his hands on the table and ducks down so that his eyes are over the edge of it, just to get a good, close look at what just happened.]

Something like that would take me ages to do. [Because origami? Yeah, no, he'd rather make paper airplanes. Or little stars.]

[thebloodseal]

Alchemy is really handy for this kind of thing- taking shortcuts and the like. It has limits, though- if you want to gain something, you have to lose something in return. That's why I have to be careful when I transmute, and studied chemistry when I was younger.

[geonomy]

[He blinks, then looks up at Alphonse, though he doesn't straighten up to a stand just yet.]

So... When you did that, did you lose something?

[thebloodseal]

This one is on too small of a scale for equivalent exchange to come into play... it would be the same as folding the paper. Now if I were to, say, try to make a sword from the metal in the wall, it would thin out the wall and leave a dent. I couldn't just conjure one from thin air, do you see?

[geonomy]

Oh... yeah, I see! [He straightens up now, carefully taking the origami and letting it sit on the palm of his hand.] That's really stellar. I've heard of alchemy before, but I didn't think it was something like this...

[And with that in mind, he glances down at the circles Al's working on.] So is there some kind of alchemy project you're working on right now?

[thebloodseal]

In some worlds, alchemy never did much- it was people trying to find a way to turn metal into gold. Our alchemy began that way, but it developed far beyond and went into changing all forms of matter.

[He nodded, hating that he had to lie to Clay, but having prepared a story.]

I'm trying to figure out how to transmute the walls of the ship, in fact. I wouldn't dare do it while we were out in space, but I thought it might be handy to be able to rearrange the walls or make repairs in case we suffer damage. But I'm having trouble with it, since I don't know the chemical composition of the walls. I thought that maybe if I wrote down my ideas, I might get somewhere.

[geonomy]

Hmmm... That sounds like a good idea. Would the walls stay that way for long, though? I just don't think Atroma would approve of having the walls of one of their ships all rearranged for something.

[He doesn't sound disapproving, because it is a good idea. He's just not sure if it would work for long.]

But I like it. [He grins, reaching up (and up and up) to clap his shoulder approvingly.] If you can get it to work, I think it'd really help out our ship.

[thebloodseal]

That's a good point. I wouldn't do anything drastic, but I'm sure they like everything being the way THEY want it.

[Al wished he could smile at Clay, but he has to be content with nodding.]

I think so, too- and I want to do what I can to earn my keep here. "He who does not work shall not eat". ... not that I need to eat.