Member
Iracebeth
praxidike
Gurkenkrater
Numbers
Antlers
esqueleto
xVampire3go
h0neyc0mb
Dandyx
jdh97Click.
Click.
Click. Click.
"C'mon, fire up!"
Click.
"Should have switched back to light bulbs when I had the opportunity..." a low voice muttered more to itself than anything else in the darkness. Another attempt to throw the switch, but while its collegues followed suit one of the luminescent tubes refused to work still. Unfortunatenly it was one of the more important ones, illuminating the workbench and not some empty space or temporary collection of garbage.
The cellar probably was the only place in Maël's abode which did not have that certain odour of burnt tobacco in it, but given its size one could argue that his home still was at least halfway smoke-free. Instead the smell of wood filled the room along with traces of leather, rubber and a waft of hard-soldering. All of which was okay, but smoking here would get him rid off whatever kind of reputation he had earned so far pretty fast. Aside from that -- in an environment filled with wood and dust many decades old it was just too much of a fire hazard.
There it was, pretty much in the centre of the room: a not-so-mighty, but still formidable Wurlitzer CX. The one with the intricate roll-changing mechanism. A machine which could give you all the fun for a single coin, from a time when phonograph records were a heap of teething troubles and transistors not even a theoretical thing. Well... not all the fun to be honest. That did only come if one dared to take the panels off before switching it on so one could see for oneself just how oldschool the idea of steampunk already was back in the day. There were more than enough flexible pipes that needed replacement, an abundance of cogs and chains desperately crying for lubrication and an electric motor that looked like a massive, black chunk of menace. Not to forget the light bulbs! Quite ironically this instrument's lighting was in better working order than that of the room it was being restored in.
The larger part of the general population being oblivious to the supernatural was a good thing. Maël had convinced himself very early that most people would not be willing to sell any instrument to a passionate lover of those things who also was half a demon. Unless of course they hoped for it to be given some kind of infernal touch. There had to be a way to make one of those cute wooden organ pipes scream like a real banshee, hadn't it ? And if computers could do magic one couldn't rule out the possibility to create a music roll that would make a Wurlitzer CX summon an otherworldly being just by playing it. A melody of horror that would spill death upon any undesired intruder automatically!
Anyway. He currently lacked the time to delve into cool imaginations. He had set himself the goal to get the thing back in working order at some point in the future. However there always were those unforseen evantualities... Sometimes they were the spice in the soup, but sometimes they were also just flat-out annoying. Having dropped his somewhat outdated smartphone onto a small table, Maël shoved himself beneath the inner workings of the machine. The two double-action bellows had become brittle and were leaking badly.
It took a few hours until the thought of a fresh cup of coffee had become too tempting to resist. He never would have thought to check his phone while filling himself up with that rejuvenating poison -- why give work B the opportunity to reach oneself while one was trying to regenerate from work A ? Said phone however was quick to realize that it had left the depths of reinforced concrete and could make contact with the network again. The message was accompanied by a particularly loud ringtone he had selected for anything that orignated from @SundayGroup.org. Yes, he had a hobby for relaxation and a real job that put him into weird and no less perilous situations frequently. Now the latter one had come to bite him.
------
Big, bright red and accurately printed letters announced the contents of the small plastic case:
CARFENTANYL
- EMERGENCY USE ONLY! -
Somewhere below the red letters and written in white ink by hand stood a small footnote: "And Clive use only plz because I know he's the best with guns!"
Not so much with his personality though... Maël added internally as he stared at the case. Carfentanyl was a somewhat pumped-up variant of fentanyl and normally only used for putting things like elefants, lions or ice bears asleep quickly. However Maël, heavy-heartedly, had opted to buy that tranquilizer dart gun just in case something would happen with him even he didn't expect and couldn't control anymore. Not that it had ever seen any real use since then and not that he was entirely convinced of the whole thing being a good idea in the first place, but better safe than sorry always was a good approach and he was not the one who would have to make the ultimate decision. Therefore he always took it with him to the Sunday Group's offices.
Speaking of which... that message had been received just now, but it had been sent hours ago already and spent the meantime in the network's buffers. He was running late, damn late!
The building had a small car park below the ground that could only be used by those who had the proper keycard and were registered employees. There was a security service which cared about it during the night and a caretaker to keep things tidy and well maintained, so Maël had absolutely no concerns giving his motorcycle a stay here. His own office ? One of the more boring ones: no laboratory down in the cellar, no inofficial 'please don't stay here because someone might teleport and displace you to death' zone he imagined in his mind, no weapon racks and not even as much as a custom keyboard replacing the one that was standard office equipment here. In other words: A museum preserving how the building had looked like before a bunch of supernatural investigators had set foot here.
The fancy thing was the person now sitting in the chair and, to be honest, he was at least as much proud of it as he was worried.
Click.
Click. Click.
"C'mon, fire up!"
Click.
"Should have switched back to light bulbs when I had the opportunity..." a low voice muttered more to itself than anything else in the darkness. Another attempt to throw the switch, but while its collegues followed suit one of the luminescent tubes refused to work still. Unfortunatenly it was one of the more important ones, illuminating the workbench and not some empty space or temporary collection of garbage.
The cellar probably was the only place in Maël's abode which did not have that certain odour of burnt tobacco in it, but given its size one could argue that his home still was at least halfway smoke-free. Instead the smell of wood filled the room along with traces of leather, rubber and a waft of hard-soldering. All of which was okay, but smoking here would get him rid off whatever kind of reputation he had earned so far pretty fast. Aside from that -- in an environment filled with wood and dust many decades old it was just too much of a fire hazard.
There it was, pretty much in the centre of the room: a not-so-mighty, but still formidable Wurlitzer CX. The one with the intricate roll-changing mechanism. A machine which could give you all the fun for a single coin, from a time when phonograph records were a heap of teething troubles and transistors not even a theoretical thing. Well... not all the fun to be honest. That did only come if one dared to take the panels off before switching it on so one could see for oneself just how oldschool the idea of steampunk already was back in the day. There were more than enough flexible pipes that needed replacement, an abundance of cogs and chains desperately crying for lubrication and an electric motor that looked like a massive, black chunk of menace. Not to forget the light bulbs! Quite ironically this instrument's lighting was in better working order than that of the room it was being restored in.
The larger part of the general population being oblivious to the supernatural was a good thing. Maël had convinced himself very early that most people would not be willing to sell any instrument to a passionate lover of those things who also was half a demon. Unless of course they hoped for it to be given some kind of infernal touch. There had to be a way to make one of those cute wooden organ pipes scream like a real banshee, hadn't it ? And if computers could do magic one couldn't rule out the possibility to create a music roll that would make a Wurlitzer CX summon an otherworldly being just by playing it. A melody of horror that would spill death upon any undesired intruder automatically!
Anyway. He currently lacked the time to delve into cool imaginations. He had set himself the goal to get the thing back in working order at some point in the future. However there always were those unforseen evantualities... Sometimes they were the spice in the soup, but sometimes they were also just flat-out annoying. Having dropped his somewhat outdated smartphone onto a small table, Maël shoved himself beneath the inner workings of the machine. The two double-action bellows had become brittle and were leaking badly.
It took a few hours until the thought of a fresh cup of coffee had become too tempting to resist. He never would have thought to check his phone while filling himself up with that rejuvenating poison -- why give work B the opportunity to reach oneself while one was trying to regenerate from work A ? Said phone however was quick to realize that it had left the depths of reinforced concrete and could make contact with the network again. The message was accompanied by a particularly loud ringtone he had selected for anything that orignated from @SundayGroup.org. Yes, he had a hobby for relaxation and a real job that put him into weird and no less perilous situations frequently. Now the latter one had come to bite him.
------
Big, bright red and accurately printed letters announced the contents of the small plastic case:
CARFENTANYL
- EMERGENCY USE ONLY! -
Somewhere below the red letters and written in white ink by hand stood a small footnote: "And Clive use only plz because I know he's the best with guns!"
Not so much with his personality though... Maël added internally as he stared at the case. Carfentanyl was a somewhat pumped-up variant of fentanyl and normally only used for putting things like elefants, lions or ice bears asleep quickly. However Maël, heavy-heartedly, had opted to buy that tranquilizer dart gun just in case something would happen with him even he didn't expect and couldn't control anymore. Not that it had ever seen any real use since then and not that he was entirely convinced of the whole thing being a good idea in the first place, but better safe than sorry always was a good approach and he was not the one who would have to make the ultimate decision. Therefore he always took it with him to the Sunday Group's offices.
Speaking of which... that message had been received just now, but it had been sent hours ago already and spent the meantime in the network's buffers. He was running late, damn late!
The building had a small car park below the ground that could only be used by those who had the proper keycard and were registered employees. There was a security service which cared about it during the night and a caretaker to keep things tidy and well maintained, so Maël had absolutely no concerns giving his motorcycle a stay here. His own office ? One of the more boring ones: no laboratory down in the cellar, no inofficial 'please don't stay here because someone might teleport and displace you to death' zone he imagined in his mind, no weapon racks and not even as much as a custom keyboard replacing the one that was standard office equipment here. In other words: A museum preserving how the building had looked like before a bunch of supernatural investigators had set foot here.
The fancy thing was the person now sitting in the chair and, to be honest, he was at least as much proud of it as he was worried.
