Pearl's Herbs and Cures

Patience leaned her elbows against the wooden counter top in heavy concentration. Her fingers spinning and knotting some twine in order to fashion a necklace that she would later hang one of her charms on. It was a slow day; very few customers had visited her. Pearl's Herbs and Cures--named for her deceased grandmother--was a small shop on the edge of town. The outside of the shop was completely brown except for the colorful, hand painted sign that Patience had created herself. The interior carried over the same earthy tones: the counter was a medium brown wood that was immediately visible from the entrance. It curved in an L shape and the backroom at the end of the L was concealed by a gauzy brown curtain. On the same wall as the entrance there were many wooden cubbies painted a glossy, luxurious deep red. These cubbies extended to the adjacent walls as well. Each cubicle was filled with vials or candles and along with it read a small scripted sign detailing what the items were called. There were two windows on the entrance wall, one on either side, and none to the back. The same gauzy material that covered the backdoor also covered the windows but was thin enough that tinted light still came through.  

Patience was exceedingly proud of her shop. Every morning she would light a candle of luck. And at night she would she would take a vial of goodwill and sprinkle it around the inside and outside of her shop. Even the sign on the front had been created with her potions mixed into the paint. The overall effect was to give people a sense of ease when they saw her shop. She knew she had to be careful. If anyone thought she was bewitching people she would surely have to leave town.

She pushed back her frizzy, carrot colored hair. It had escaped from her bun again. She finished the necklace cord and tied the end. There were small tables in the middle of the shop that held charms of different shapes and colors. Patience tried to make a deal with the glassblower to give her a discount if she were to make larger orders with him, but he refused. He had said her business was shady was didn't want to be caught up in it. As a result, Patience had been trying to craft her own glass--without much luck--she often had blisters on her hands and the glass came out imperfect. She needed it hollow so that she could pour a potion within it to give the amulet power.

Sighing, she tied the cord to a deep blue circular charm and placed it back on the table. Behind the counter there were many dried herbs either hanging from the large cabinet that stood there or within it in baskets and bottles.

Patience nibbled on her thumbnail. She needed to get a customer in or she would lose this place.

New Avalon: the pinnacle of technological and infrastructural achievements. They call it "The Steam-Powered City," or "The City of Engines". It was a marvel to behold. Towering Gothic architecture studded with interconnecting sky-bridges and beautiful steam-powered machinery. Smokestacks billowed out from almost every building and airships ruled the hazy skies. The air was filled with that satisfying clank and grind of metal on metal, and even lower Avalon had a grungy but attractive aesthetic as a sort of get-anything-you-want, adventurous sort of district. Of course, New Avalon had its less reputable parts, but for many of its citizens this did not take from its overall beauty, especially for one Santo Piero Loquasto, who was all too accustomed to viewing the city's proverbial asshole.

Piero worked as a maintenance man at a facility unofficially known as "The Shitworks," the impressive conglomeration of New Avalon's sewage ducts in one titanic facility which was meant to push the city's waste to the far reaches of the Bone Wastes. This activity held a dual purpose: To dispose of New Avalon's tremendous amount of fecal composite as well as to deter the famed Wastewander bandit tribes from setting up camp closer than is comfortable for the city. Forcing the city's waste so far out of the city required tremendous force from a tremendous machine, which operated using tremendous but simple turbines and steam engines.

Piero maintains one such simplistic turbine cluster within the Shitworks in spite of his great aptitude for engineering. Piero is unable to acquire a job suitable to his talents as an engineer unless he possesses the proper documents of apprenticeship. Piero lacks such documents because he has yet to discover a master engineer to sponsor him. Piero has yet to discover an engineer who will sponsor him because he is what the locals have colloquialized to be "a filthy wastes rat" due to his tan skin, dark hair and funny name, and his job at the Shitworks does little to ease the sting of such comments. This makes Piero a sad young man, but his aspirations drive him to continue his unfortunate tasks at the Shitworks to support himself and his hobby of inventing until he is able to find an open-minded master engineer to take him under his wing.

One particularly foggy day, Piero was trudging on home from a particularly exhausting shift at the Shitworks. He cut through a quaint part of town, away from the hustle and bustle of one of New Avalon's main channels, quite honestly because he just felt like it. Piero enjoyed the cute little shops to be found in the friendly alleyway mazes which sidled the main channels: mostly gimmicky clothing and accessory shops; New Avalon is all about fashion, after all. As he passed by most of these small shops, within one he spied a young lady with unmanageable orange hair fiddling with some string, all alone behind the counter of an herbal remedy shop.

"Pearl's Herbs and Cures... has a ring to it, I suppose..." thought Piero, out loud and to himself. His long hours spent alone helped him develop a habit of speaking his thoughts out loud. He looked again at the girl, whose hair was beginning to remind him of a violent explosion. Overcome with a sudden and deep longing for human interaction, Piero awkwardly strode into the shop.

The door opened. A small bell over the door sung a honeyed note to alert Patience of the customer's arrival. She quickly jerked her thumb from her mouth and spit the piece of nail she was working on onto the floor--hoping he hadn't noticed Patience threw her hands behind her back and straighten to her full height. She was unusually tall for a girl but very thin. In fact in the nude you could see every bone in the girl's body. Patience was aware and self-conscience of this fact and so always dressed well to compensate. Her blouse was a burnt orange with buttons all the way up the front ending at a stiff collar, her skirt was long and gray flaring out at the end in a mermaid fashion. The skirt still emphasized her height but not her slenderness.

Patience was quick to grab the pieces of orange hair that had fallen close to her face and tuck them around her ears.
"Welcome to Pearl's. Is there anything I can help you find today?"

"Oh! Hello! I uhhh..." Piero sputtered, as though he could possibly not have noticed the young lady. "I was just browsing." He'd actually gone in there on the off chance that the store carried an herbal remedy for smelling like dung after work, but he wasn't ready to reveal his slightly shameful endeavor. Piero was similarly tall and slender, but not much more than the carrot-topped store clerk. He wore drab overalls and work boots -- not covered in human waste, as the Shitworks officials are generous enough to provide a cleaning station to wash used clothes at work, though the stench still clung to anyone or anything that spends too much time there. He always wore all-purpose goggles on his head -- the worse of his two pairs for work. He had unkempt short-ish black hair that grew in all directions and tan skin, the defining features of a Caelondian.

Piero stalked about the store, lightly examining various trinkets on display; The pretty colors attracted his attention. He couldn't help but smile at the simplistic allure of the little shop. "Hey uhm, I was wondering if you had anything that's uhhh... smelly."

Patience watched the man move about her shop. She enjoyed looking at him, there was a handsomeness in his unkempt, hardworking physical appearance. It was something completely foreign to Patience.
...
She couldn't be thinking about things like that! She was at work! And he was a potential customer! Despite her prayers her cheeks lit with color.

"Hey uhm, I was wondering if you had anything that's uhhh... smelly."

Scrambling and hoping the gentleman wouldn't notice, "I have many smelly things here!" She blurted then quickly curled her lips in and squeezed her eyes shut for a quarter of a moment. "What I mean to say, is that I have many scented items for sale. May I inquire about what it is you seek?"

Piero hadn't a precise idea of what scent he desired, nor had ahe an idea of what would cover the odor or... mix with it. "Uhm... well I work in a sort of... smelly line of business." he decided then to spill the beans. "I work maintenance at the waste management facility, so sometimes I come back smelling a little... less than desirable." he let himself chuckle a little. He shouldn't have to be ashamed of what he does for a living. "Someone's gotta do it, ya know?"

Blinking several times as this set in, Patience now understood. She had grown up in high class society, and it was easy for her to forget things like waste management or that there had to be someone to take care of it. She grew up in a world where there were many wonderful things at her disposal--so many that one didn't take the time to waste a thought about why they worked or how.

Thinking now about the task at hand, Patience knew she didn't have anything that exactly met the man's needs but she could make it easily enough... He is looking to remove an odor... therefore... repel the odor--attracting a more pleasant one perhaps... no, that may backfire and just mingle with the smell he does not care for. Coming out of her reverie, she bee-lined for the left wall. This section held all her plain perfumes, nothing interesting added. She picked up her favorite--lavender--and hesitated. Marine blue eyes found the dark colored man's.
"Do you care for this scent?" She extended her arm with the vial's cap in her other hand.

Piero's head tilted slightly to the side as he watched a series of thoughts flow in and out of the young lady's head. He as glad to see that the store clerk was taking care to think of the best solution for this putrid predicament. Not many people cared for a Caelondian in their store and make it a point to set them on their ways as soon as possible. A Caeldonian's coin may be the same, but dark complexion and hair aren't good for service.

The young lady flitted over to a shelf of curiously-shaped bottles and plucked one from the set. Do you care for this scent? She was charmingly attentive to him, smiling and presenting to him the possible answer to his odorous ordeal. He smelled, and a soft, pleasant sensation filled his nose. Subtle, yes, but he wasn't sure the smell of poop-covered flowers would be much more appealing.

"Uhm... do you maybe have something that could cancel the smell?" he didn't mind one bit that he was spending more time than he had to talking to this nice young lady.

He hadn't answered the question. Patience's lips folded to one side of her face. She didn't want to be rude and ask the question again--but then, maybe he too was trying to be polite by not telling her outright that he didn't like it. That would make sense. It wasn't as though the man knew what she had in mind on the other hand. He simply might have thought lavender itself wouldn't do the trick. And he'd be right.

Patience corked the bottle and rolled it delicately between her fingers in thought. Abruptly she turned and removed three other scents from the same cabinet: jasmine, amber, and vanilla. He was bound to like one of them as far as Patience was concerned; the three scents couldn't have been more different--four including lavender.

She strode over to the counter and laid out the vials. Patience hesitated. She didn't like working on her mixtures with customers in the shop. Her mouth twitched again. She would have to make an exception.
"One moment." She held out a finger before disappearing into her back room. The shop used to be a bakery, as such there was a brick oven and a large icebox. Directly upon entering the room was a circular table. Patience quickly got to work grabbing a mortar and several items off nearby shelves. She moved like a hurricane--a very organized hurricane that always put its belongings back where they came from directly after use.

"Just a pinch of salt..." Patience was satisfied. The mixture was slushy and cold--she had added ice--and a nonchalant blue-white color. She'd bottled it in a fat container about the size of her fist. She returned to the sale's room with the vial.

"This should remedy your problem." She presented the bottle proudly with two hands--only a little shyly. "Notice that the bottle is cold: I do not recommend using it warm and especially not hot. This is not something you should worry about using too much of. More is better than less. Do make sure to use no less than two tablespoons with each application. I cannot stress this enough.

"In order to use sprinkle the mixture over anything you wish to repel the odor of fecal matter--you may use it on yourself as well. It works best when applied beforehand. Also, after many washings the mixture will come out or off of whatever it is applied to and will have to be re-administered."

Piero was wide-eyed as the store clerk rattled off all of the different properties and conditions of use for the granular substance presented before him; chemistry and mixology fascinated Piero as they were of the few things Piero hadn't much knowledge of. As an engineer, Piero's mind for physics and mathematics was unequalled, but the very idea that a substance absolutely could not be of use if it were room temperature was beyond him.

Piero's eyes also widened at how expensive this was beginning to sound. "Well, that actually sounds like exactly what I need... however, like I said, I work in the waste management facility, which means I don't make a whole lot of money." he looked away, sheepish and feeling a little vulnerable. "I'm hoping I can purchase this uhm... what do you call it?.. at a reasonable price.... OR! Or maybe, maybe if you need something fixed or something, I can repay you that way!"

Patience was about to open her mouth and say that the mixture was on the house--a loyal customer is better than the occasional one--when he offered his services. Patience could think of a million things she needed done but she wasn't sure what the man was capable of and didn't want to overwhelm him by giving him a task that would end up being greater than the price of her potion.

She gave the man a once over, he certainly looked strong but that didn't mean he could fix her thatched roof. His apparel and social stature made her think he might be able to find ingredients for her potions, but there was no way of knowing if he would actually be helpful under those circumstances. Nor did he appear to be an exceedingly bright individual who might be able to find creative solutions, if need be, if she were to give him the task with little instruction and without going herself. If it came down to that, she was better off on her own. Not to mention she couldn't trust this gentleman not to tell anyone the secrets of her shop and being seen with him in public may dampen the trust of those in town. That would be the last thing she needed. Patience contemplated excusing him all together.

"What services can you offer?"

Piero had an earnest hope that he could repay the young lady with some handy work; not so much because he was tight on cash (not that he wasn't), but he was eager to do some work above ground and possibly with a charming, if a lick odd, young woman to socialize with.

What services can you offer? Yes!! "Well," he said with a spring to his voice, "I'm a pretty skilled engineer! Anything around here or at your home considered mechanical, runs with an engine, I can build or fix it, usually. And beyond that, I'm a general handyman sort!" Piero couldn't help but smile; he'd lead a strenuous and particularly lonely life since he left Caeldonia.

"And if the job ends up being worth a bit more than that bottle right there, I'm sure I could always use an extra.

The edges of Patience's mouth knitted together. She had few machines in her shop and those she did own were of sound working condition. Then a thought struck her.

"As a matter of fact..... I think there may be something here your skills might be able to revive...." Patience dove-tailed around the counter and pulled back the curtain. "If you would follow me a moment." She moved passed her mixing table, her vials, the brick oven and stopped at an object covered with a large cloth. Patience peeled the cloth from the large mechanism: it was the height of Patience and a half and about four times as thick. "This has been here since I inherited the shop from my Grandmother. It has never worked so I don't know what it is or what it does but I'd always assumed it was some kind of grinder. For wheat perhaps. You see, this was once a bakery. I could use something like that if you can get it to function again."

Piero couldn't help but smile when the young store clerk didn't turn him away. As a matter of fact..... I think there may be something here your skills might be able to revive.... He was eager to see what kind of a job he could sink his fingers into beyond the inelegant machinery in the Shitworks.

Piero followed the store clerk into the back where something a man and a half tall was covered by a large sheet. The anticipation excited him; his mind immediately began flooding with possibilities. ...I don't know what it is or what it does but I'd always assumed it was some kind of grinder. For wheat perhaps. Piero was about to make a comment about where he might find parts to repair a grinder when she pulled back the sheet.

Piero's smile was quickly overtaken with an expression of awe; this was certainly no wheat grinder. It stood at the height of a man and a half, and twice his width. Thin lines -- gaps -- ran through the machine, suggesting that it had moving pieces, like a massive three-dimensional puzzle. For all of Piero's years of intensive machine work, he'd never seen anything like this in his life.

"Oh wow..." he said with a chuckle, "I have to admit, I haven't seen anything like this in my entire life. If there's one thing I could tell you about it though, it's no wheat grinder." Piero donned his goggles and approached the mechanism. He slid a glove off of his hand to touch the outer shell. "This is high carbon steel, miss," he said with a tone of fascination, "With that kind of material and the extremely tight-fitting parts, it's safe to say that this was built to withstand physical abuse." Piero circled around the machine and spied a port in back through which he could see some of its innards. "This... this is some of the most intricate construction of any machine I have ever come across!" He continued to dig through insides. "The compressor is busted... top of the line part though. This sucker was meant to output immense amounts of energy."

He paused to regard the store clerk once again. He peered around the machine, goggles still on his face, "I would love to try to fix this up for you. Anything to keep myself from smelling like dung all day long, heh." he gave a nervous chuckle. "I-I'm Piero, by the way."

"I have to admit, I haven't seen anything like this in my entire life. If there's one thing I could tell you about it though, it's no wheat grinder."
Patience frowned. She hoped she would have use for whatever this thing ended up being.

The young man began to inspect the machine as he did Patience couldn't help seeing dollar signs--if this machine wasn't of any use to her it sounded like it might fetch a pretty price indeed. Enough that Patience might finally be able to raise her stature and have her family back again.

"I-I'm Piero, by the way."
Patience offered a small, honest smile--quickly checked his hands for grime--and then offered her delicate hand as well. "Patience Childer."

"Do you have any idea what this could be? I mean, I know my Grandmother was strange--er, not to speak ill of her, she was a kind and wonderful woman, so full of hope. But she was also... eccentric. That also sounds... that's not what I mean...." Patience fumbled over her own words. "My Grandmother was a woman who followed her own heart, and so what I mean to say is that this... thing could really be anything."

The store clerk offered Piero a handshake. Patience Childer, she said her name was. Though his hands were clean, Piero habitually wiped his hands on his slacks before receiving her hand with a firm shake.

Do you have any idea what this could be? I mean, I know my Grandmother was strange--er, not to speak ill of her, she was a kind and wonderful woman, so full of hope. But she was also... Patience continued to struggle for the right words to describe her grandmother. Piero gave the machine a couple of affectionate taps. "I have a few loose theories on what she could be, but at the end of the day, I really haven't the foggiest." Piero lifted his goggles. "Whatever she is, I fully intend to discover her purpose. Doesn't deserve to be locked up in the back of a shop out of commission." he turned back to Patience and smiled. "So, when can I get started?"

"Oh! Well, now--wait, how long do you think this might take? Hours? Days?" Patience began to worry. This whatever-it-was was beginning to sound like a liability. A strange man coming into her shop day after day, people would notice. If she was labeled a harlot there would be no coming back from it.
"I fear that this project may be well over the price of the mixture..." Patience expressed. Unable to fully communicate to the gentleman her worries.

Piero was already back to scouring the machine before Patience could finish a sentence. Grandmother... Eccentric... Followed her heart. He was far too enveloped to hear everything but he continued to nod and her pauses as he slid his fingers over every nook and crevasse.

Piero's hand found something, at which point he froze and stopped listening entirely. Eyes wide, he slowly retracted his hand, and out slid a bit of metal that fit in the palm of his hand. It slid out so smoothly that he knew it was meant to be removed.

He held it up to show Patience. It was an angular piece that had fit perfectly into the slot it slid from. Was it an assembly piece? A key? He could not tell

"Well what would you make of this, Ms. Patience?" Porto said with a look of wonderment and a grin on his face. He'd taken the first step to solving the mystery machine.

As Piero removed the piece Patience was still lost in her worries.

"Well what would you make of this, Ms. Patience?"

"I--" Suddenly her eyes narrowed in on the piece and her long fingers gripped its edges. She lost her train of thought. Her finger tips ran over the perfectly smooth metal. "I've seen this before" Patience muttered to herself; almost completely forgetting Piero's presence. Piece in hand, Patience ran to the front counter and removed a large box. She knelt hurriedly on her knees as she harshly set the box on the floor before her. The gauze curtain directly at her back separated her from the back room but it could still be seen though. Desperate fingers dug through the box until she found it. Patience halted her haste and removed the piece of metal slowly from the box. She rose and held a metal piece in each hand leaving a mess on the floor. Patience walked slowly back to the other room but her eyes were on the metal things. They weren't identical, they weren't even the same size. In fact the new piece was a little bigger. Patience turned them through pinched fingers looking at every angle.

She stopped walking.
"Do they--" Thought left unfinished as she brought the things together and they clicked together like magnetic puzzle pieces. The seam between them began to glow an unnatural neon yellow. Patience let out a cry and dropped the pieces onto the hard stone floor but they landed unbroken.

Piero reflexively fell to his knees to catch the object, but it fumbled and bounced across the floor. He flailed past Patience, almost knocking her over, snatched the newly-formed object and scrambled to his feet.

"Sorry!" He gasped as her clamored to his feet. The object was so alien, unlike a single piece of technology Piero had ever laid eyes on. He was fascinated and excited. "What is its purpose, Ms. Patience?? And where is this light coming from?" He gave the two pieces a firm, precise tug. There was no separating them.

Piero then hurried over to the machine, desperate to fit the now glowing piece back into the machine. With an expression dripping with anticipation, he slid the piece into the slot it was pulled from."

Nothing. The boyish excitement in Piero's face melted away, but rather than disappointment taking its place, it was intrigue. "One mystery solved, and more take its place," he said, looking up at Patience with a warm smile. "Where did you get that other component, if I might ask?"