The Dust Factory Feud (private w/Saoirse, Copperfield, and Kinto)

[Forrest Waldstein]

Friday, 7:48pm...

The worn sign of the abandoned Dust factory hung silently at the gate when they arrived. The sun was mostly swallowed up by the ocean, resulting in a picturesque sunset that made the abandoned factory almost presentable in this light. The scenery was complimented nicely by the screeching of seagulls, as they were near the mouth of the river. The sign read "Terra Industries", an unfortunate Dust company that simply couldn't keep up with the competitive market. It had closed down about a year ago, with law enforcement keeping the place under lock and key to prevent criminals from looting the place. Rumor has it that Terra Industries still holds a large reserve of Dust crystals in an underground warehouse beneath the factory. Former employees of Terra Industries were obligated to sign non disclosure agreements, which to this day remain enforceable, so the rumor remained mysterious and unsolved. Thankfully, Copperfield had the right connections (and awareness of loopholes) to get the keys to the place, and was able to invite two of his students to a field trip. Forrest was one of the takers.

It was certainly going to be an interesting field trip, seeing the machinery and processes used in a crystal-to-bullet factory firsthand. Forrest had taken plenty of notes, and brought one of his notebooks to jot new ideas down. Despite the academic nature of the field trip, it still behooved them all to carry their weapons. The authorities may have kept the entire building locked up like a fort, but there was still the possibility of encountering squatters or looters, especially when the rumors are taken into account. Still, they were all skilled Huntsmen, Copperfield much more so than the others for obvious reasons. They could definitely take out a looter or two if things got hairy...

[Saoirse Luíseach]

Sei had been looking forward to this all week.

Copperfield was by far her most interesting professor (though the honor of most interesting class belonged to Professor Noire's combat instruction lecture), so when he'd asked for a pair of volunteers to "go poke around an old Dust factory and hopefully not blow anything up" she'd jumped at the chance. Not only was she curious to see how the modern age put Dust into all the things they put Dust into, but she also wanted to get some field experience. Professor Noire's lectures had done an excellent job of showing Sei her shortcomings, and she hoped that this expedition would give her a chance to shore some of those weaknesses up. With Copperfield there, there was very little that could go badly wrong, so she would use this opportunity to get some much-needed experience.

"Why did you volunteer for this excursion, Forrest?" she asked her fellow classmate as they approached the building.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield felt like he was stretching an old muscle with the loopholes he jumped through to make this field trip happen. His time at Atlas and finding ways to break the spirit of pretty much every rule without the letter of any was a constant pastime in his youth. He wasn't really popular with many people there, the other students had wanted to follow rules, and those that took after himself always messed up and got expelled somehow.

This one had been trickier, however. It wasn't a simple "You said I have to wear my shirt so I wore it backwards" situation, there were legalities and contracts involved. But a whole store of Dust just sitting and waiting? The stuff was meant to be used! And it would teach the kids a little more about the process of manufacturing Dust. Maybe. But what it would SURELY do is fill up his Dust reserves and keep more Lien in his wallet. He was saving up for something expensive for Vera, his girlfriend and colleague at Beacon Academy, and needed the cash. So after long hours of looking over the paperwork instead of any of his other teaching duties, he found a way and got the approval to enter, as long as they were careful and not disturb any of the old machines.

And while yes he had his own selfish reasons for coming, he had another. Once Ms Luiseach, that strange girl from before the Mesozoic Era or something, volunteered he saw another opportunity. They way she and her Tome could manipulate Dust was something he had never seen before. Hopefully with this field trip and her seeing how humanity did things now, she might make comments, let some information slip.

And Mr Waldstein was coming along as well. A dependable boy who needed to learn a lot more about industrialization and Dust processes. And Dust in general. Honestly, he hoped that the boy would learn what it looks like so he could keep it from happening in his home town. That place was a sanctuary of greenery and longevity, and Copperfield would hate to see it be ruined with the same advancements everyone else had. They were thriving as it was, but there are always people looking to advance technology in every society. Forrest was the grandson of the chief, and would probably one day inherit the title. It would be up to him to make those decisions, but you cant make a choice without knowledge, not really. So, knowledge.

So maybe there was one or two reasons for this field trip that weren't selfish.

It was sunset when they arrived, the second time of day that made it the hardest to see. Perfect. Sei asked Forrest something while Copperfield moved to a locked side door, stepping over a chain preventing entrance with his giraffe-length legs, and slipped out a pair of lock picks, a turning tool, and a small little plastic vial. The vial had a rubber tip, and once that was inserted in the keyway he squeezed the vial. Oil and lubricant squirted into the keyway. Then Copperfield got to work with his picks.

"Hey, no one's watching, right?" He asked as he focused on the lock. Click on 4... Safety pin on 5...

[Kinto Boreas]

"Hey, no one's watching, right?"
Kinto could not help but chuckle as he sat on a rooftop overlooking the facility his target was currently "legally" breaking into.
It was a pain to get Copperfield out like this, but letting a bit of info of this place come to the professor to remind him of a cheap and easy way to get the resource a man of his occupation needed most, Dust.
Sure, Kinto could relate to a point, except that unlike the Professor he was not bound by the legal system, his acquisition of Dust was much more streamlined, which is why he made sure to deposit a bit of extra bait for the professor, a nice cache of combustion and fire dust.

Now, it was easy to shoot the professor from here, but, the man was tense, he would most likely expect some sort of confrontation, may it just be with a bypasser, regardless, once he was inside and thought himself and his students save Kinto would strike.
Until then, he read up on the system diagnostic the Guide had just completed, it was operational and just sitting on the roof of the old Dust tacitly, in stealth of course, but it was currently also running checks on the two students the professor had brought with him, one was easy to find, Forest Waldstein, an Oakhearthian, able to control plants, a keen mind and sharp tactical wit, but easy to fluster from what Kinto could gather of various reports.
The other...a complete mystery, she had appeared a few years ago, showed up here and there simply described as the girl with no past, he'd have to be careful around her, information was Kinto's favored weapon and fighting a ghost like the young Luiseach was a risk he'd normally not be willing to take, but this was his first shot at the professor so he'd just have to bite the bullet.

Sighing, Kinto heard the lock give in, he adjusted his helmet and gadgets another time as she slowly but surely got into position, there was a structural weak point just above the cache he left for the professor, once he was close enough he'd blow the cache and use the resulting structural damage to get in and the chaos to attack.

[Forrest Waldstein]

"I never saw the inside of a Dust factory before. I figured that it would be a good learning opportunity. What about you?" Forrest inquired. Sei was certainly a mystery, not just to Forrest, but to just about everyone else. Both Forrest and Sei kept to themselves, Sei more so than Forrest, so this was a good opportunity to learn about her.

By the time Copperfield had finished picking the lock, they all entered the factory. Forrest thought it a bit strange that Professor Copperfield had to pick the lock, but actually getting the key was likely too complicated. Besides, it's not like Forrest was one to call someone out on lockpicking considering he'd done it at least once before. Taking a look around, the prominent feature of the factory was multiple rows of assembly lines. Cheap, but serviceable chairs were evenly spaced between each other on both sides of the assembly lines. On the assembly lines were various tools used to manufacture the Dust crystals into bullets. Given how dusty the assembly area is, it's likely hadn't been touched since the day it shut down. To the west, an ascending staircase and a door next to the bottom of the stairs provided a means out of the assembly area. The north and south both had windows close to where the walls met the ceiling, the south also possessing the entrance door that the three of them had just walked through. The assembly lines continued east to the wall.

[Saoirse Luíseach]

"Much the same," Sei replied. "I wanted to see the process by which Dust products were made. The methods are more standardized here than they were back home," she commented as Copperfield popped the lock and they slipped inside.

Rows of machines stretched across most of the space, covered in a thick layer of dust. "Much more standardized," she added as she walked up to one of the machines.

Wondering what it had looked like before being covered in a layer of dust, she swept her hand in front of her and muttered a few Words under her breath. "Rhi, Kiir Ke, Ulu." A soft breeze emanated from her hand, stopping just past the other side of the machine, and blew the dust off.

"How long does it take to build a machine like this?" she asked as she examined the now dust-free device.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Click, pop, and they were inside.

It wasn't that he wasn't allowed a key, it was that the establishment's attempt to give him permission without letting him inside was claiming the keys were lost. No matter, as long as they were allowed on the property everything was above board. Suck on that, city council!

Ms Luiseach meantioned today's production being very standardized. So, back then it was less machines and production and more of masters and their pwn philosophies on design, then? Interesting...

"A machine like this?" He replied after watching her do a rather impressive job imitating a leafblower to get the lowercase 'd' dust off. He looked it over and, yup, it was what he thought it was. "A Dust Cutter. Takes larger pieces of Dust and cuts them down to standardized sizes, or whatever the customer has ordered. With all the pieces together and simple assembly, not long. A full day at most. But for this machine to come into being was probably at least 2 year sof R&D if not longer, and another year to work out the kinks and design flaws and allow for more shapes and sizes."

He took a moment to look it over. A really simple machine, once you knew how it functioned. Wasn't too different from a band saw or a logging saw. "I have a smaller version myself, but it requires that I'm a whole lot more hands on. This is something of beauty, certainly made to pump out industrial amounts of Dust. The excess would be sifted out and used to become powder or smaller Dust stones."

[Kinto Boreas]

Kinto, using the thermal vision of his helmet, observed the group below him, from the conversation he could hear it seemed that the ghost was unfamiliar with dust, interesting, this would be one hell of a lesson then for the young miss.

He tapped a button his wrist, a small device activated in the facility below he had installed this one in one of the storage lockers as with the press of the button to locker just slowly swung open, the old rusted lock giving out against the small piston he had installed, a small gust of wind brushed past Copperfield to make him notice the readily available supply of dust, ready to lure the professor into the proximity explosive installed in the locker full of fire and combustion dust.

Then, Kinto would finally swoop in to eliminate the target.