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

[wickedwit]

"You know I'll always support and supervise curiosity getting the better of you. What are you working on now?"

[sporesprouter]

"Trying to work out the basics of how the toaster works. Because then maybe I can figure out how to make one that works with spores for my ship."

[wickedwit]

"You're ahead of me, as always. I don't know what a toaster is, nonetheless how it works." But Claudius moves into the workshop with what's now casual familiarity. "Don't they have this in the kitchen?" he asks of the toaster on the work table. He's never touched the thing.

[sporesprouter]

She nods. "It toasts bread. You put the slices in the slots and they go down into the inside and it's like a small fast oven."

[wickedwit]

"I've never been in such an urgent need for toasted bread, I admit. But you'd like to make spores do the same?" That makes it infinitely more interesting as a device. "Only for bread, or will it have other uses?"

[sporesprouter]

"Cooking with sunlight spores can be... tricky. Stoves on ships don't really heat particularly evenly and it can make food..." She pauses. "... kind of tragic, unless you're careful and really know what you're doing. I just wonder if doing it on a smaller scale like this might help with some things." She wrinkles her nose at the second question. "Janet showed me some pre-prepared pastries they make to be heated in one, but they were... really very sweet."

[wickedwit]

"You know, I've been considering the problem of heating for my own workshop. Laertes and I found one together, to practice alchemy." Claudius smiles at that, and at knowing Tress will be glad for him, for that boy who kept up his studies. "I doubt a toaster would solve it, but research into heating mechanisms might. What have you discovered so far? Other than too-sweet pastries." He has to ask Janet something, he remembers, but he doesn't remember enough. He mentally waves the thought aside.

[sporesprouter]

She promptly starts to point out bits of toaster. "The power that the toaster gets is sent to these metal wires here which heat up. They're evenly spaced and close to the bread-- or pastry, I guess-- and it makes for consistent results, and the timing can be adjusted depending on how toasted you want what you've put in."

[wickedwit]

There’s something enjoyable about having all the parts of a new, incomprehensible thing laid out and identified. Claudius watches intently. “I see. And sunlight spores are used for flares, you said — I don’t imagine that makes for an even sear.”

[sporesprouter]

"Oh, they're awful. It's tricky to tailor recipes to work with it and I still feel sorry for the crew from before I traded helping cook for my flare gun. Fort was doing his best, but the oven at the time was even worse, and... well, it was edible, but really only just."

[wickedwit]

"And if you solve the heating problem, you'll save future meals, and the poor cook's tears. A brilliant captain truly never stops thinking of her crew." It's teasing, but in truth, he's delighted to talk as though Tress's return to her crew is inevitable, helpful invention in hand.

[sporesprouter]

She smiles, fondly if a bit wistfully. "I can only imagine what he'd try to give me in trade. Or at least how the negotiations would go. Well, presuming I figure this out... and a lot of other things, of course."

[wickedwit]

"What do you make of it so far?" asks Claudius, gesturing back to the dissembled toaster and away from what-ifs. "There's a mechanism here for containing and redirecting heat from a power source, within a narrow framework. Do you think it can be applied to spores?"

[sporesprouter]

She nods slowly and turns to her notebook, sketching. "I think maybe if there were some kind of chamber that had water and spores slowly and separately feeding into it, it could build up a steady supply of heat and then metal wires could spread the heat in the same way. It's just deciding what kind of metal would be best."

[wickedwit]

"We could pick out a few, run a few experiments. I know less of metallurgy than the other alchemical arts, but I've enough of the basics to help." Smirking, he says. "Once we're done, I'm sure we could write the only book on culinary metallurgy in both our worlds."

[sporesprouter]

She nods. "It's a good idea. I'll say straight out that they can't be silver, iron, or steel, though. They all interfere with spores in one way or another."

[wickedwit]

“Copper would’ve been my first suggestion. It’s one of the seven planetary metals, corresponding with Venus.” Claudius shakes his head, smirking. “Which doesn’t much matter for our purposes. It’s only useful as a vulgar mnemonic — venereal metals are passionate metals, you see, who grow quickly heated and remain that way.”

[sporesprouter]

Tress grins. "Oh, that's useful. So copper at the top of the list, then, although testing more is still probably a good idea, just to be sure."

[wickedwit]

"Let's see ... we've ruled out silver, iron, and steel." He counts them off on his fingers, and assigns them in his head, moon for silver, Mars for iron, and steel -- he thinks, picturing symbols scribbled in old books -- is a derived from iron. "Gold falls under the Sun, of course. Alchemists are obsessed with it -- no small ink amount is spilled on gold and its properties and how to recreate them. But I believe ones of those properties is its ability to carry a sun-like warmth. Tin goes with Jupiter, and might well work. Jovian metals hold heat and lightning. I wouldn't use lead, that's Saturnian. Mercury is ... well, I believe I told you about the First Element when I was a child. It's its own thing, and we wouldn't want it around food, anyway."

[sporesprouter]

"Gold's also expensive, though. It's not so much a consideration here, but back home, there's a logistical issue to think of. Still worth trying in the tests, of course."

[wickedwit]

"I did wonder whether that would be the case in your world, too. Perhaps by the time you've quit this place, I'll have a philosopher's stone recipe, and I can craft a supply to send with you as a farewell present." Claudius smiles at her. "But for now, just enough gold for testing will do."

[sporesprouter]

"I think no matter where you go, people are going to like shiny things, and gold definitely qualifies," Tress says sensibly. "But shiny and useful is even better."

[wickedwit]

There’s a truly silly thought that passes through Claudius’s head, one that he might’ve brushed aside before. But Tress has seen him lovelorn now, so he might as well voice it. “Galahad has hair like gold, and I’ve gotten quite fond of flattering him over it. I suppose I’m as much a fool for gold as anyone else.”

[sporesprouter]

Tress laughs almost despite herself. "I think that's sweet, from you to Galahad. Although I'll never quite understand what it is about hair color that makes men try to come up with silly comparisons."

[wickedwit]

“It’s because we’ll run out of words otherwise. No matter how many words a man has, or how educated he may be, he’ll never have enough in his vocabulary to flatter someone he cares for. In fact, the more educated a man is, the worse he is about it.“ Because he has to tease, he asks, “Have you gotten your share of comparisons?”