Forums of the Coast

( night after returning to the Gatehouse Keep, after Post-Mission 1 )

Shigeru was taking some time to maintain his devices--- cannon and rifle, outside the living quarters where there is more space to put things... when a purple-haired girl in her late twenties [~], wearing Tougou armor with a cat on her head and a rifle strapped on her back, walked over from her stroll. She didn't say a thing before she picked up the cannon that Shigeru had just finished working on and began to closely examine it in her hands...

Shigeru glanced up from performing maintenance on his rifle when he saw that someone was examining his cannon. "Judging by the rifle, I probably don't need to warn you, but just to be safe, I'm going to ask you to please be careful with that," he said as he resumed checking the alignment of the barrel on his rifle.

"What kind of attitude to take is that!" came the reply in a slightly shrill but male voice, except Shigeru noticed that the girl didn't move her mouth for a second. "You should be glad that my servant...", the girl raises her hand and smacks the cat above her head "...the great Hiraga Tsunami even came over to look at your junk!" The sound seems to be coming from the weird contraption strapped to her cat.

Then the girl moved her own mouth a second later. "Pretty standard design, except shoddy," she said quietly, partially to Shigeru and mostly to herself, "...and cheapening on the range."

"True, it would have been possible to increase the range, but materials are limited and I have other devices to maintain as well," Shigeru said, motioning to his rifle, torch, and humanoid universal load carrier, which he had set up for maintenance.

Tsunami took out a small piece of paper and scribbled something on it, before folding it into a triangle-looking thing and tossed it--- the folded paper glided smoothly onto Shigeru's lap. "Not that expensive; Reach it," she said. ( in paper).
She then examined the humanoid load carrier, a little more intrigued than before, and took particularly attention at some of the test devices that fell out of it...

"Hmmm...interesting..." Shigeru says, glancing up after looking over the paper. "And you seem interested in the load carrier I built. My first version of it was way too bulky, but I managed to bring the weight and profile of it down considerably. It sure helps when you have to carry around an alchemist's lab on your back everywhere," he said, giving his torch a quick test to make sure that all its components were connected properly. "Want to know how it works?" he asked.

Tsunami shook her head and moved on to looking at the items that spilled out, while her cat went "she's already figured it out! what do you take a genius for!?"

She went from one item to another, setting the ones she looked over aside with relative care but without any sense of order. It didn't take her long to finish, after which she once again picked up Shigeru's attempts at creating powder shells or other forms of casing and examined it, before reaching into her long coat's pockets, which didn't bulge at all and is probably extradimensional, and took out a cylindrical shell made of wax-paper.

"House Tanegashima was working on this--- few years ago. Doesn't quite work right yet, but you should be able to figure out." She then tossed the cartridge towards Shigeru and began walking away, making a backwards hand waving motion towards him as she left.
(sense motive: Shigeru's pretty sure she's trying to 'test' him with this).

(prof/craft: you can create basic alchemical cartridges based on this prototype now--- will only take a day to figure out the issue, plus one day to 'invent' each cartridge type)

Shigeru starts working on the alchemical cartridges, looking for ways to improve on the design. (working on Paper Cartridge first)

(Profession[Inventor] 1d20+12 = 30)
(Craft[Alchemy] 1d20+28 = 46)
(Knowledge[Engineering] 1d20+17 = 33) (Just in case its worth anything)

(Thank to the Master Alchemist feat...)

Shigeru manages to figure out two types of cartridges within one of the days. He also manages to refurbish the 20 muskets for the gun squad within the next 5 days' time (since you mentioned taking up that position).

(Considering the fact that the only cartridge I can use other than the Paper Cartridge is the Flare Cartridge, thats the other one I figure out. The rest of them require scatter weapons, and I don't have one.)

Shigeru works on making as many of the paper cartridges as he can.

(Craft[Alchemy]: )

Shigeru has 1 extra crafting session remaining this week--- during which you can make up to 12 paper cartridges.

(also I just saw this, but add a Mwk Gunsmith Kit to your equips [+2 on craft checks when making or maintaining firearms]; you'd have found this from the gunchemist killed during the castle assault).

( had forgotten about this with all the work surrounding Squall's chara... )

( October 28th, dusk... )

As Shigeru was moving the spare equipment that he wasn't taking on to the Mikawa mission into his new room, he noticed that the strange 'cat-abusing' person has dropped by again.

"Oi!" Hiraga Tsunami called out loudly as she approached, even though she was only ten steps short of Shigeru at this point. She also looked surprisingly excited, doing the greetings herself rather than just through the cat.

"I heard your gang was going to Mikawa! So I came to request a souvenir!" even her speech was louder than usual, and the voice was slightly grating on the ears. She crossed her arms and smirked, "Word has it that Custom's forces are there, so bring me back a Tulip!"

Know(Nature): 1d20+16 → [7,16] = (23) (because this was MY first thought)
Know(Engineering): 1d20+17 → [11,17] = (28)

"I get a feeling that Custom's forces don't exactly have these things up for sale," Shigeru said, setting down the box of equipment he was carrying.

( The tulip is a perennial, bulbous plant with showy flowers in the genus Tulipa, which comprises 109 species and belongs to the family Liliaceae... )
( and the Tulip is also a weapon series created by Maria Custard of Custom )

"What kind of lazy sarcasm is---" the cat had yelled before Hiraga hand-chopped it again, and he spent the next half a minute or so coughing up a furball.

"Who cares about that! I--- we, must get one either way; in the name of technological advances!" her usually dulled voice was getting more self-righteous and haughty by the second. "Those Japanese muskets we use are merely cut-down imitations of the original!--- I was there you know, when cube-face finished his first musket based on a Tulip prototype!"