Open Post: Curiosity

[sporesprouter]

Tress is, as she often is, in her workshop. However, what she is doing in her workshop is not even close to her usual activities.

Instead of her usual array of spores and sprouter's gear, she has found some more standard tools which are sitting on the table next to a rubber mat that is holding... a toaster. She secreted one from a kitchen that isn't particularly used. To the side are a couple books from the library as well as her open notebook.

She turns the toaster upside down and starts undoing some screws on the bottom of the case.

After all, the best way to figure something out is often to gain practical knowledge.

Comments

[sagramore]

It's very important for Sagramore to check in on Tress regularly; she might be overworking herself and require more horse lessons. So he pokes his head in, coffee in hand. "Good morning! What are you working on?"

[sporesprouter]

Hey now, she is dutifully brushing Fenyes every morning. She very much likes that horse.

She looks over and smiles. "Hello! I just got a little curious about how this works so I decided to take a look so that maybe I can figure out how to make one that works with spores."

[sagramore]

"Oh, that's the thing that toasts bread? How does it work?"

[sporesprouter]

"From what I've read, it puts a kind of power into some metal wires that heats them up close to the bread."

[sagramore]

He comes in and approaches her worktable to observe it. "Hmm. What would you replace with spores, exactly, if you were to replicate the effect?"

[summerdude]

Magnus stumbles across the workshop quite by accident. "Tress, right?" he says, poking his head inside. "What's up?"

[sporesprouter]

She nods. "Yes! And you're Magnus, right?" She looks back at the toaster. "I'm trying to figure out how exactly this works so that maybe when I get home, I can try to make something similar."

[summerdude]

"Oh cool, toaster," Magnus says, taking it in. "They don't have them in your world?"

[sporesprouter]

She shakes her head. "No. We just toast our bread in ovens. And when the oven on your ship doesn't heat very evenly, it makes for patchy toast."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet was pretty sure that Tress was from some kind of fantasy situation. Considering all the moons, and the spores, and whatever else. But when she pokes her head into the workshop, what she sees doesn't look like fantasy bullshit at all. It looks like something you'd get at Target.

"Hi," she says. "What's up with the toaster?"

[sporesprouter]

"I'm trying to work out how it works to see if maybe I can eventually make one that uses sunlight spores as a heating element."

See? It's just a prelude to fantasy bullshit.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet's eyebrows shoot up. "Okay," she says slowly. "Like... for fun? Is this just a science project? Because I assume that toaster worked fine before you took it apart."

[sporesprouter]

She nods. "I tested it. But the kitchen I got it from wasn't being used much so I don't think I really inconvenienced anyone." She unscrews another piece and sets it out of the way. "Whenever I get home, I think having one would be useful, and we don't have the same kind of power supplies there are here."

[timebethine]

Laertes has lately been thinking again about asking to try his hand at shaping spores. When he pokes his head into Tress's workshop, though, he finds her engaged in another pastime entirely, and curiosity gets the better of him. "What's this?" he asks. "And hallo. Good day."

[sporesprouter]

"Oh, hello! It's one of the gadgets that this place has. The one that toasts bread. I'm trying to figure out how it works to see if maybe I can make one that uses spores."

[timebethine]

"Oh, I see," says Laertes, studying the guts of the machine. He frowns. "... no, actually I don't."

[sporesprouter]

Tress starts to point out bits of the machine. "From what I read, starting the toaster heats up these wires which sit close to the bread and, well, toast it."

[aflashbastard]

We're not sure what Crowley is looking for, but it definitely isn't Tress in the workshop with the toaster... He still pauses for a second, though, to watch what she's doing.

"What did that toaster do to you?"

[sporesprouter]

"It got me wondering how it works." Tress carefully pries a heating wire array away from its setting. "It's interesting." She looks up. "Oh, and hello."

[aflashbastard]

“Hi,” he says. The last time they talked was when she was questioning him about Damien and he pointed her astray. He wonders if she ever found the random individual he was describing. “What’s so interesting about it? It’s just… wires and metal bits.”

[sporesprouter]

"It's what the wires and metal bits do. It's an interesting gadget. I'm trying to work out if I can modify the principle to make something similar whenever I get back home." Yes, it still manages to be a when for her.

[wickedwit]

"I don't know whether I owe you a thank you or an apology," Claudius says by way of greeting, leaning on the door to the workshop. "But I know it's one or the other. Hello again, Lady Tress."

[sporesprouter]

Tress looks up from the innards of the toaster and smiles. "Oh, hello. I really don't think it's either, but I'll spare you having to pick and say you're welcome or you're forgiven."

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs. "Deftly handed out. You know, I was hoping to maintain some semblance of maturity or mystery around you -- but you've seen me once as a child, and you've seen me another time laudanum-addled and in love. I've no mysteries left." Truthfully, Claudius isn't sure about that. He's unsurprised, somehow, at how quickly he restored a cordial and teasing relationship with Laertes after the revelations of regicide and fratricide -- but if he told Tress the same thing, he doubts Tress would look at him in quite the same way.

[sporesprouter]

"Well, for the once, you were a much more interesting child than I ever was. As for the other, I'm sure there are worse things to be when not exactly in possession of your senses than miserably in love. Did you talk to him?"