Stonebarrow Forge
Situated at the edge of Blacktail territory and will away from any habitation, it would be easy to overlook the forge if not for the near-constant stream of smoke from the chimney. The complex is mostly underground, with several sunken stone structures separated by tunnels. The main forge itself is a hellish cave-like room where a simple steam vent spins a turbine to run the various bellows, hammers and grinding stones. The walls are constantly damp from condensation and soot as well, making for a rather humid atmosphere.

"Deirdre, you didn't have to come with me," Zahn's voice complains from the entryway passage, "I just need to speak with Roy on a few matters. They don't involve you."

"Oh shut up, Zahnrad," Deirdre retorts in the hallway. "You know he belongs to me. I have to make sure you aren't going to bother him."

Next to the forge stands a figure decked head to toe in heavy leather, including a veil-like mask with two rough-cut eye holes. Despite the heat and discomfort, Roy Blacktail shovels some fresh coals into the fire pit before turning to greet the visitors. "Oh, hallo Deirdre," he says, lifting the mask up and letting it flap back over his head.

The frown Deirdre was wearing quickly shifts to a smile when she spots the large Kadie. She saunters over in her intricate and unusual garb; this time it's an entire dress made from thousands of little knots and braids. "Hello, Roy," she purrs at the large Kadie when she reaches him. Up she goes on her tiptoes to nose the underside of his chin. "I hope we're not bothering you. My … cousin insisted on seeing you today," she apologizes.

"I didn't insist, I just ask… " Zahn starts to say before a glare from Deirdre quiets him.

Roy dips down as if to kiss the Kadie, then stops when he finally notices Zahn. "Oh, Amelia's friend, right? Zany? What can I do for you?" he asks.

Roy doesn't get out of it that easily. Deirdre reaches up and pulls Roy's head down enough so she can kiss him … which she does.

The big Kadie automatically puts his arms around Deirdre, and with any luck his gloves won't leave any stains.

Zahn fidgets nervously and doesn't interrupt while Deirdre is … occupied. When she's done, Zahn explains, "It's Zahnrad, actually, or Zahn. Zany is, well, nevermind. Mr. Blacktail recommended that I talk to you after I offered to help around your clan territories since Amelia has been helping around mine. I feel like I ought to do … something."

"Oh," Roy says, in clear surprise. "Well… let's go someplace cooler then," he suggests, and gestures to the tunnel behind him, between two shelves stocked with buckets of water and sand.

Zahnrad heads into the tunnel. Deirdre, on the other hand, waits until Roy walks with her and the two enter the tunnel. When they stop, she leans back against him and pulls his arms back around her. she then just looks at Zahnrad, daring him to comment.

"I, er, well, I know Deirdre has been helping you out on a few things," Zahnrad says, though there's a bit of inflection on the 'helping' part, as if he's unsure how much real help she's being or how much of a distraction she's being. "But I do want to get to know your clan better. I mean, if I'm going to be with Amelia, I should get along with her clan, right?"

The tunnel is… odd. Rather than going in a straight line, or even a curve, it seems to be nothing but corners that zig-zag about. Side passages likewise follow erratic turns, and each intersection sports signs painted onto the stone walls to keep someone from getting lost. After passing by 'ACID', 'GLASS', 'STO' and 'NAP' they arrive in a room labeled 'RES'. It sports a large table, some chairs and an old couch and wall-to-wall bookshelves. Light comes from a smoked glass skylight.

"Not many try to get along with us," Roy notes, and gives Deirdre's shoulder a squeeze to indicate she's one of the few. He shuffles a bunch of loose papers to one side of the table, and says, "Make yourselves comfortable while I go take off my leathers."

"I'll help," Deirdre immediately volunteers. Zahnrad just pulls out a chair and sits down in it, then folds his hands together.

"I'm sure you will!" Roy says to Deirdre with a wink, before leaving the room with her. This leaves Zahn alone with a bunch of old books and a stack of drawings and notes.

"Who would have thought she would be pursuing a Blacktail," Zahnrad thinks to himself, "But then … look at me. Heh." Curiosity getting the better of him, he leans over and tries to get a look at the drawings.

"I promise I won't make it take too long … this time," Deirdre's voice echoes from somewhere in the compound.

The drawings are mostly of forge-related modifications, and most of them show Deirdre's style of handwriting as well. There are others that seem to show rough sketches of other devices involving lots of glass tubing, or spinning drums and other things that aren't easily recognized. Other papers are full of carefully written notes and formulas, along with references to the books they came from.

"Huh, I guess she has been helping," Zahnrad admits as he looks over the diagrams, "Dispersion and forced induction to keep temperatures more even. Not a bad idea. Better grating too to remove, what is it they're called. Klinkers? The impurities that fall out, I think. Not sure what the others are, though if it spins … it might be for separating out various densities. Not that she'll ever tell me."

One of the sketches, not in Deirdre's style, is clearly of some sort of pumping apparatus for fluids or gasses. It reminds Zahn of the pneumatic engine design that Clover tried to draw.

Zahn's brow goes up at that. "Did they build that or did they find it? If they found it, where?" he muses and pulls that particular sketch over for closer inspection. "I wonder how deep this forge goes… "

After deciphering the Creen-scratch writing, it looks like parts of the device are meant to connect to a 'condenser' and a 'radiator'. It could just be a device for moving heat around.

"A cooling system? Who designed this?" Zahnrad mutters and starts looking for any sort of signature.

"I did," Roy says as he and Deirdre return. "For making ice." The blacksmith is wearing a canvas smock over simple clothing now.

"Did you base it on other designs? I've seen some that are strikingly similar before," Zahnrad asks absently, then jerks upright. Deirdre is scowling at him.

Roy gestures vaguely to a bookshelf, and says, "Something from a book. Has to be modified a lot. Glass tubes are poor conductors, and ceramics are too thick… "

"Ideally you would use metal as it conducts better," Zahnrad says with a nod, "But such is hard to come by. Using alternatives would require increasing the surface area of the components a lot in order to get the same rates of transfer. Anyway, uh, sorry for looking. I couldn't resist."

Deirdre walks over to one of the chairs and actually pulls it out for Roy. She smiles to the large Kadie … then goes back to glaring at Zahn.

The man just shrugs. "Metal would be good, but it's all just a design for fun. Can't get a compressible gas for it. What sort of help did you want to offer?"

"Whatever I can help out with," Zahnrad admits, "I'm not sure what you would need help with. I was hoping you could tell me how I can help. My best skills are mechanics and machines, of course. But I'm not above just doing simple things too."

Roy leans his chair back and scratches at the mutilated side of his scalp for a moment. "Mmm, gearbox on the turbine is starting to warp from the moisture. Could you replace it?" he finally asks.

"Sure," Zahnrad answers, "Do you have diagrams for it I can take with me or do I need to make some from the existing turbine? I don't want to remove the unit until I have a replacement, otherwise you'll be out of a turbine." The Kadie then pauses there to scratch his own chin. "Say, have you considered using this design here to condense moisture out of the air? In this humidity, water would easily condense on anything even somewhat cold. Less moisture in here would help, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, but it's hard to collect because of the soot that mixes in," Roy notes. "I have the diagrams someplace, but it probably won't match them by now. If you can make new ones that would be handy."

"Put a filter in place in front of the point where air is drawn across the cooling fins to catch the soot," Zahnrad suggests. At the mention of just building a new box, he nods, adding, "Okay, I'll need to take some measurements of the existing turbine and its main gear. Do you have speeds you want it to normally run at?"

"It only runs at one speed now: not fast enough," the blacksmith notes with a grin, seeming to relax under Deirdra's attempt at grooming. "We don't have a proper boiler to build up pressure with, not since the last one exploded. It's just a pipe now, and even that won't last a lot longer."

That causes Zahn to blink a few times. "Weeeeell," Zahnrad muses and rubs his chin, "sounds like that would need to be replaced too, then. Why haven't you tried to replace the boiler?"

And try Deirdre does. It's rather out of character for her, really. She's being positively gentle and affectionate as she carefully works out any forming tangles. She's even smiling.

"Too expensive," Roy notes, giving a little shrug. "Most of our iron supplies now are too low grade to make waterproof steel out of. Too many impurities, although I'm hoping the latest batch of acid will clean it some."

Zahnrad coughs a bit, then reaches inside his jacket. "I might have a solution to that, if you can figure out how to melt it down," he says hesitantly, "But you have to promise not to mention it to anyone before I say anything more."

"Nobody understands what I do here anyway, so nobody every asks about things," Roy admits, then reaches up to pat Deirdra. "Well, almost nobody."

"Don't forget that I already told you," Deirdre says, "That I would help build a new boiler for free, Roy. No labor costs or anything."

"Still need decent metal for it though," Roy reminds her. "I don't want it blowing up at least until after I've retired."

Zahnrad pulls out a small bag and slides it across the table to Roy. Inside are some of the strange 'metal' bolts that Zahn took from the underground workshop. "Check those out and tell me if you think you can do anything with such material. I have a source for more."

"Heh, I'd rather it not blow up until after you've retired, too," Deirdre agrees with the man. Her grooming stops, though, when the bag slides across the table.

After opening the bag and removing one of the bolts, Roy puts his glasses on and looks at it closer under the illumination of the skylight. "This isn't metal," he finally says. "Not fully metal, anyway. Glassteel I think it's called. Temple ceramics."

"Can you do anything with it, anyway?" Zahnrad asks, undeterred so far by the analysis.

Roy puts the bit on the table top and spins it with a twist of his fingers. "Hmmm, tricky stuff. Heating isn't a problem, but cooling is. It needs very special cooling. Fast cooling. But… it gives me an idea."

"Just what have you been up to?" Deirdre asks Zahn, staring at him intently again.

"Stuff," Zahnrad replies. "I can get quite a bit of the stuff in various forms. It could be useful to me too in some of my projects."

"We'd need a refrigeration system to really work with this," Roy notes. "But I might be able to use our low-grade iron to make a new boiler if I can bond a coating of glass to the inner and outer surface to seal it against oxidation."

"And I have something else. A special sort of resin, I think. Combined with some cloth, it can be made into any sort of shape," Zahnrad continues on. He produces a small swatch of the glass matting material along with a vial of the powder that he and Amelia borrowed from the lab. "Can you reproduce anything close to this?" he asks next and slides that across the table now.

"Oh, I know this stuff," Roy says, taking the samples. "Well, maybe not," he then says as he examines the glass cloth closer. "Zolk fibers are mixed with resin protective coatings on a lot of airship materials. This looks like glass fiber though. I have the design for a machine to draw it out, but never tried to make it. Didn't see the use for glass thread at the time."

"Yes, it's glass. It's strong, too. Combined with a good resin it would make an excellent shell that can hold up to a lot of conditions," Zahn says with a small shrug. "I've … well, seen some things built from it."

"Your airship skin?" Roy guesses. "Glass would be lighter than zolk in a mix like that."

"It was an idea, yes," Zahnrad admits and looks at the table.

Deirdre shakes her head. "You never give up, do you?" she asks Zahn.

"No, and nether do you. So, for once, leave me alone, okay?" Zahn says to his cousin.

Setting the swatch down, Roy drums his fingers on the tabletop in thought. "I'll need to look through some of the books here, but I think this could be useful. Maybe let us get away with a smaller boiler even."

"Well, uh, thanks for looking at it, at least," Zahnrad says lamely to Roy. "I'll see what I can do with your gearbox on the turbine in the meantime. I'm certain I can come up with something. Ceramic gearing may hold up better in this heat and moisture. I'll need to experiment a bit."

"Hmm?" Roy says looking up as if having completely forgotten about the old gearbox. "Oh, yes… ceramic would be easier to maintain. Especially for a compressor. Hmmm. Two Creens with one stone, as Amy says… "

"I already have some ceramic gears I've been using for another project I could use as a model for a new gearbox," Zahnrad admits, "I'll need to talk to the Potters about fabricating a few more for me."

"They can do components like that?" Roy asks in surprise. "I had no idea… "

"They follow instructions and if they have a mold they can," Zahnrad answers, "I made a mold and asked them to produce a ceramic version."

Deirdre actually tickles Roy's left ear. "Hey, just don't get so focused you forget about me," she tells him. She then gives Zahn a rather sharp or else, look.

"Huh, I never thought of trying that," Roy mutters. He takes a pencil from one the pockets of his smock and scribbles something on one of the sketch papers. Then he turns it over and starts drawing something else in a blank space. "What? Oh, I'd never forget about you Deirdra! But if we can make glass fiber then we can make glassteel, see?" he points to a quick sketch of what look to be wire-wrapped spheres.

"Yes, but … " Deirdre starts to say … but true to Wingnut blood, the Kadie starts getting a bit lost in the drawings before her as her mind starts working on the problem now.

"Anyway, I have taken enough of your time up with all of this," Zahnrad says as he starts to stand. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me."

"Maybe even ice," Roy says, dreamy-eyed. "We use a small boiler to run a compressor to pump air into these resin-fiber pressure tanks. Then we use the air to run the machines, or to cool down things… oh, yes, when can you come by again, Zahn?"

"Well, I have something I have to deal with up at Doctor Pike's place the next day or two, but anytime after that I can come back by," Zahn answers … then quickly adds, "She's having problems with one of her machines again." He then freezes at the talk about pressure tanks and air motors. "Has Roy been to the same place that messed up Clover's head? He knows a surprising amount about all of this… " he thinks. "Say, uh, Roy, have you gone deep underground before?" he asks hesitantly.

"Underground? No, why do you ask?" Roy says. "I get a bit claustrophobic if I know I can't get outside quickly."

"Oh, it was so dark and closed down here I thought maybe you liked being underground," Zahnrad says as a manner of coverup. "Anyway, uh, I should be going."

"Well, thanks for coming by," Roy says, smiling. "I've got a lot of things to look up now. Probably be up all night," he comments, although more towards Deirdra at the end than to Zahnrad.

"Then you'll have some company all night," Deirdre's voice can be heard to say as Zahnrad slinks out the exit passageway. "I didn't need to hear that," Zahnrad thinks as he hurries to the exit before he hears anything else. "If she gets pregnant … no, don't even think about it! Gearbox, gearbox, la la la, gearbox!"