Tea... and here I am, the only guy with the antidote. How'd that happen?

Gentle Readers, some interesting encounters this last few days.  But first, the news.

My solar projects are starting to show results in the range I'd like.  I think with a bit of networking and research, I've got some of the photoreactive properties of Night Gargoyle stone replicated in a graphene lattice.  Note, for those of you who haven't had dealings with the species, that Night Gargoyles calcify into stone when exposed to sunlight.  As do some species of hill troll.  But such cannot be negotiated with and are for the moment, not within the scope of materials I had access to.

In any case, I was able to contact someone with access to a rookery of gargs that were entirely willing to let go some of their shed scales and biomass.  My idea was that the absorbed solar energy was being converted and stored as potential energy to fuel them like food when they decalcified at night.  So the ability to collect, store and convert stored energy back to usable bioelectricity was a magical property that could be isolated and conferred onto other materials.

I've been into some of the mundane science journals' articles on the uses of 'graphene'.  Or to put it more plainly, atom-thick layers of carbon in a lattice.  These are extremely strong lightweight materials.  Just the kind of flexible sheets I'd like to be able to apply to surfaces to absorb, store and draw energy from instead of the motion enchanted generator I've got in the shed.  I'm at the moment able to get roughly 65% of the energy I estimate is being collected back from the graphene sheets with the 'euryale' enchantment on it.  Even 65% is an incredibly good result, considering what the mundanes are doing with silicates and metal that don't get even 50% back yet.


And I'm sure I could refine it more.  If so, I can probably have a mobile lightweight power source for the golems.  They could have a composite armor layer with a graphene layer in it where they're powered by ambient light.  Of course this means they'd be kind of an iridescent slate gray-black.  The darker the better actually.  The darker I get it, the more light it would absorb and store.  I probably need to dig out the capacitor research to store the excess.

And now what will probably interest you more.

Met with Adrianna McCoy just recently.  Who seemed to be hinting that she might be able to apply her not inconsiderable sway in certain circles to make an inquiry into the ongoing investigation that drives my life right now.  She also seemed to indicate that an investigation like that has a price of its own.  And while I might be somewhat unpracticed at such negotiations, I find myself not at all unwilling to pursue it.  She is, I suspect one of the most social creatures I have ever met.  Following her around online a bit in the NWM boards, she seems to know a little something about everyone.  I suppose this might be from her position on the Disciplinary Tribunal at school.  And honestly, I cannot say that I didn't enjoy our encounter.

It stemmed from a thread she posted.  A thing where she's trying to get people to be thoughtful on thursdays.  Where she asked what we'd change about ourselves had we our d'ruthers.  That and was there someone you might be able to tell 'anything'.

My answers were about what you'd expect from a summertime engineering recluse.  Wishing I could be a bit more considerate and caring with people instead of the callousness I normally present.  If only people could be a bit smarter or worthy of interrupting my work for and all that.

As for that special confidante...

...

Well, let's say the opportunity worth the risk doesn't seem to have presented itself overtly.

That said, I do look forward to my next meeting with Miss McCoy.  I'm aware of her rather public dalliances with other students at our previous years' formals and events.  And aware that for some obscene reason, I'm expected socially to disapprove of such promiscuity.  That kind of thinking is for jealous dullards stuffed with inadequacy issues.  And I've no time for it.  Not when our next meeting may be worth more than just its weight in data and practical applications.  If I'm to be more than just what I've become, then learning to enjoy the people I want to improve the world for is part of it.  Somehow, I find it hard to believe that enjoying her company will be a chore.  As to whether I can be as enjoyable for her as well...  Well, we'll see.

Soon after, I took tea with Hyacinth Oeler of all people.  OUTSIDE of the library or wherever she disappears to when she's not studying like I do.  After Miss McCoy left, we talked for a little while about the sort of things I'm working on, what for, and to what end.  Which segued into a discussion about the eventual discovery of the Magimundi by the Mundanes and what horrors that might entail.  My own point was more along the lines of it being better to be a warrior who was ready to garden than being a gardener with no idea how to war.  To prepare for the fantastic possibility of peace as much as war so we don't favor a solution of the latter instead of the former.

And Hyacinth was an inquisitive, if intense, conversationalist.  One whose conversation, should we choose to talk again, I would consider my privilege to enjoy.  She seemed to not mind my own blend of blackberry and honey.  She has a leaf of her own she thinks I might enjoy the straight honest taste of.  Unless I'm reading more into her words than I'm supposed to be, it may not only the taste of tea she wanted to share.

Being as focused as I've been, it's something I hadn't considered the possibility of.  Much less from two people in the same amount of hours.  I wouldn't think either had some ulterior motive.  As antisocial as I've been, what could anyone think to want of me other than the conversation we enjoyed?  I will not let my paranoia scotch or scar this.  I had a nice day.

Well... it was nice.  It may not have been as nice for Hyacinth.  I touched a nerve with her, I think.  She folded up like the trays in my toolbox when I asked about her experiences with Mundanes.  I put forward the idea that we didn't need to talk the next time we met for tea.  Which tells me more about me than her I think.  Apparently I desired or cared enough about her company that I wanted there to be a next time.  And negotiated one.  Who knew I was capable?  I didn't.

Music time.

A podcast show I quite enjoy has a musician whose music has looped around and around for me lately.  It sets up in my thoughts.  I have procured a copy and slowed it 800% recently and enjoyed it just as much.  It feels like the place I have come to live in my thoughts and feels these last years.  The wistful echoed quality of it much like the blue-purple of misty emotion that creeps around the shadows of my skull and the work pouring out of it.  Were I to have a soundtrack of my own, this might be the first track on it.

Randomly going to the next track in my playlist...

And finally...