Where's the Kaboom?

    Sometimes, a person in the grasp of a creative obsession will quietly work on their chosen task. They won't fuss, won't make a mess, won't even demand things like food and sleep. And while Fuka has been relatively mild in attitude when it comes to dear people telling her she needs to stop and sleep or eat, well, she's never really been the quiet sort.

    *CRASH* "Oh for the sake of..."

    What follows is a creative string of curses, enough to make one wonder just whether Fuka's actually fallen into an obsession with scripture. The spiel is interrupted by loud clangs as if of steel-toed footwear meeting violently and repeatedly with heavy stone objects. Then, after an impressive string of both, there follows a grim silence. Then, abruptly, a whistling sound as something is shot into the air at rather high speed; an object can even be seen shooting up out of the courtyard, either punted *very* hard or otherwise flung by some impressive amount of power.

    One investigating will find Fuka panting and fixing her work with a deadly glare. Said work consists of a series of engraved pillars with platforms resting on top. Or, in one case, the platform seems to have flipped entirely off its pillars and crashed to the ground with destructive force where it broke rather thoroughly.

    Part of being a good Baroness is knowing what is going on at all times. With Eas being a common vacation spot for those in strange moods, it's especially important to keep track of people. Fukaziroh, being Elly's niece, has been kept under a careful watch the whole time. Tae is usually responsible for ensuring that food and sleep are happening, while, Elly ensures personal hygiene. All done in the most respectful of ways. This is Eas, after all.

    She will walk up behind Fukaziroh and pause to listen to the curses. She's curious, really, if there are any she hasn't heard yet. She wasn't in Japan that many years, so perhaps she can pick up some new ones!

    "So I think I got most of that, but I'm not sure on the last couple.. perhaps you could explain them?" she asks suddenly.

    While she's a little too focused, and right now apparently focused on letting off steam, Fuka's not entirely oblivious. She smiles broadly as Elly announces herself, though a faint haze of pink makes its way into her cheeks as she parses Elly's statement. "Explain...? Oh no, I'm sure I couldn't." she says, waving her hands dismissively. "Pure and innocent maidens couldn't possibly know what that means." she claims, with as much insincerity as she can manage. Yes, insincerity.

    She turns back to her latest lifting mechanism with a sigh. "I thought it would be a good idea to test what happens if a heavy load starts to slide." she says, waving vaguely at the wrecked platform lying paces away. "Turns out my physics teacher was right about unbalanced forces!" she laughs shrilly.

    "I didn't ask you to explain it to an innocent maiden, I was curious for myself," Elly says playfully. "Granted, I guess there are some measures of maidenhood that I might fit into, I rather prefer not to even try those angles."

    She turns her attention to the platform and smiles, "Well, that's a success, then! You have learned something holds true here. It's not always the case, after all. There are a lot of things that don't work terribly well in this world. However.. how does this thing work, exactly?"

    Fuka laughs at that one. "I meant me, of course!" she claims lightly. "And it doesn't work. Clearly!" she complains good-naturedly. "I mean, I started just modifying the Earth Catapult spell and it just launched lighter loads."

    This may well explain the unidentified flying object just recently happening over Eas.

    "So of course I decided to modify it. So I made a spellform making pillars expand with added Earth, but that was too slow. So rather than finding some load that was super goldilocks, I thought about engraving a spellform that could read the weight of its load and compensate to make lighter loads lift less and heavier hauls hastily hydra... no not hydraulic. What would you call it if it's earth? Uh, geolic?" she asks, then shakes her head. Unimportant. "Anyways it worked great, but I thought I'd test a shifting load and... uh, all that force got aimed at ONE side of the platform while the load was pushing down the other side..."

    "So what was the object that I saw flying through the sky a moment ago?" Elly asks diplomatically. "I shouldn't be worried or anything, right?" Hopefully nobody is missing a beloved pet felin.

    She does try to understand all the rest, but it's just not her area of expertise. So she tries to translate it into simple terms. "So basically you need to ensure you aren't throwing light loads into low orbit and yet have the right degree of force to lift heavier things."

    "Oh, that?" Fuka looks up, then around, trying to decide where that thing went. "Hmmm. Wasn't it a brick?" she asks, too calmly. "I set it down on one of the prototype pillars and ... uh..." she pauses, looking a bit sheepish. "Kind of accidentally on purpose forced the lifting enchantment to maximum discharge." she explains. Very cathartic. "Don't worry, it probably went over the falls. Probably." she suggests, not all that reassuringly.

    Never one to dwell too long on problems, Fuka nods. "Yes, that's it entirely!" she agrees. "Larger loads require more mana. Smaller loads cap the discharge so it doesn't fling things around no matter how strong the mage is. Unless they, ah, break the runes in specific ways!" she adds, in the interest of actual technical correctness. "Maybe I should test this with fish, but they're not exactly the most stable of orbital payloads."

    Rather than point out that it kind of went the other way, Elly just focuses on the positive. "Well, it certainly did throw that thing far!" Hopefully it landed someplace safe. Or on someone who had it coming. Justice can come from on high and all that.

    "I think we'd prefer to eat our fish rather than give them flying lessons. Hm. I wonder if you can put something up in the sky long enough to get the monsters to respond. I hear they always swarm anyone who tries to fly."

    "Yeah, just remembering Konko." Fuka says cryptically. "I swear she launched a koi to the moon!" the little Sylph explains cheerfully. "And I guess I probably could, but not with this system. What goes up comes down pretty darn quickly, and all that."

    Fuka pauses, considers. "Would monsters still swarm someone if they were just, you know, standing on a really tall Earth Pillar?" she asks. "With sufficient batteries and several mages, maybe we could send someone up ... who knows how far? a kilometer or two? Maybe a couple of floors of the tower!" she says customary enthusiasm. "I'd rather figure out flying than help tower climbing but still that sounds like it'd be pretty fun too!"

    "Well, we could try it. I think it mainly has been about flight, otherwise would they not react to us being on a mountain now? We are higher than any building could reach already. I understand they attacked hang gliders, as well. So it seems related to controlled flight or even gliding."

    Elly smirks and points out, "We could give it a try, though. Maybe you can make a space elevator? I've heard that word before. Though I'm not actually aware of what it means."

    She studies the lifts closely. "Do you think you could make construction safer with these? Can you just magic them up anywhere? Even on the bottom of the ocean?"

    Thoughts of flight and space get whisked away as Elly returns Fuka's focus to her current obsession. "That's the idea, yes!" she agrees. "Safer construction. Faster and safer wagon loading. Maybe even ship cranes and elevators some day!" she says. "Though no, I can't magic them anywhere. That's the Earth Catapult spell, and it's just all the force all the time!"

    "Enchanting is ... well, fundamentally it's about limits." Fuka explains. "Making mana less wasteful but more constrained, so it only does what the spellform allows but it does it extremely well. I could set up the spellform anywhere I guess, and eventually I'll be producing little stone pillars about ... you know, this long, this big around..."

    Fuka gestures rather suggestively, extremely suggestively, when pointing out the dimensions of her proposed objects. Ahem. "... Engraved with the runes needed to be like... a portable jack. Or something a bit bigger and heftier to load wagons. You know."

    "I see."

    She does not see. Priestess, Baroness, Elly.. she knows nothing about enchanting or any of these things. Earth magic is something she knows, but it's not her strength! She can listen, though, and appreciate.

    "So umm.. what you are working on will be very useful, regardless. I know we build things all the time. Or, well, we will, once we get back to normal. Or something like normal. With my people back home, it's time to get to work again."