Rokuju Vinsmoke sat at a high top bench that nestled into the back of her flat. Her freshly sharpened pencil tip tapped tapped against her ruled notepad. Her cranium propped up by the support of her forearm on the bench top. She was thinking. Thinking about how to solve a problem. What was the problem? Well Ro was not happy with her current fighting abilities. She was by far the weakest member of her family and try as she might, she couldn’t seem to get stronger. And how did Ro solve problems? She made things. Not just normal things, but the weapons and gadgets that the Germa empire was famous for. These consisted of items born from many advanced scientific methods. The culmination of all of her ancestor’s work lived in her head and she knew just how to utilise it. At her heart, she was a scientist and a creator, not a fighter. She needed strength, but she would no longer look for it through usual methods.

So what was she after? Well, gunplay had always fitted her style, what with her quick wits and precise motor skills. But a simple gun just wasn’t enough. Firing with a flintlock rifle left her as nothing more than an unimportant marine ensign. Even with her natural talent and years of training, it wasn’t anything that special, at least not out here in the grand line. Give her a gun and she could possibly out-duel any newbie Paradise pirate, but that just wasn’t enough for her to accomplish her goals. Her current strength was of plebeian proportions. She needed a boost from an outside source. She needed some next level of ability that would allow her to perform as she needed to.

Some sort of gun… What if she could create an alternative projectile launcher? She wanted to increase the precision of any instrument that she would use, and iron bullets created too many uncontrollable variables. The inconsistency of present day smelting processes was too high. Densities within the metal mixtures varies, making the firing trajectories inconsistent. There were also often differing compounds within the raw ores themselves. When Rokuju ordered iron and coal from a mine source, it didn’t take too long of a quality check to see that there were odd pieces mixed in. From tin to plain gravel, sometimes the materials she had to work with was just trash. This annoyed her to no end, as just like a chef trying to cook with rotting meat and rancid butter, Ro couldn’t turn trash into treasure. She wasn’t a magician, after all. Or was she?

After returning to her conscious mind, she found she had sketched up a pistol that would run off of a system to produce bullets of condensed energy. It was possible in theory… And condensed energy would remove all of those pesky bullet inconsistencies. Of course, some modifications would need to be made to the chambers and delivery system of the pistol itself. She wouldn’t be able to just inlay a device into a preexisting weapon, she would most likely have to make something from scratch. What about if she made a mold where she could pour a hot plastic mixture into. It would provide a sturdy and lightweight shell to hold the technology.

Craft Weapon 557/500: Energy pistol - material hardened plastic used

Ro had ideas for devices of destruction and debilitation. Only thing was, they were often limited to personal application or relied on something that was just too complex to be practical. Making it adjustable for physical projectiles could prove beneficial, although she hadn’t drawn up any plans for those yet. Scribble scribble went her pencil tip, it’s holder not taking notice when it’s sharp tip broke off, instead she continued on, dragging the lead over the paper. She was on a roll, her mind sprouting off idea after idea. Oh, don’t forget the storage, the gun should be able to revert to a form that would be out of the way. Perhaps to a box like storage on the underside of the wrist. There the gun would be able to slide out and into the palm with ease. Ro’s fingers curled through her blonde locks as her focus deepened into her work.

She had this habit of forgetting the world around her when she was in the mood to create. Sometimes she could work from dawn to dusk without moving from the spot or eating. Once she started on an idea, her hunger wouldn’t be satiated until she had a finished product in her hands. Her mind kept producing new things, suggesting new areas of exploration within the sciences and what they could offer her. Rokuju had to remind herself to stay healthy and eat properly, she knew that her habit wasn’t a good one. A healthy body is a healthy mind.

After she had drawn up a satisfactory blueprint for her energy pistol, she shifted out of her seat and wandered over to the fridge to see what it had to offer. Swinging open the door and bending down, she would see a bare box of coldness. Apart from a half eaten pot of yogurt that had begun to congeal, there wasn’t anything to eat. Turning away in disappointment, she would cop a smell of her armpit, wrinkling her nose at her own odour. Meandering back to her stool once more, she would sink back into her work. It seemed like she couldn’t even take care of herself, let alone the family business.

Okay, the gun plans were finished, they looked good all inked out. It was time to begin making the thing. She picked up the works and moved into the next room. There she would converse with an assistant of hers about how he could help her prepare the plastic molding. He told her about not having enough raw materials to make the plastic mixture that she wanted. Ro would scratch her head, thinking about what needed to be done. Deciding on her plan of action, she would ask the assistant to prepare the molds according to her specifications and that she was heading out to get some things. He would nod in understanding and Ro would leave him to get on with it. She would first pop to the shower, letting her skin feel the cleansing touch of water before getting dressed into some casual dress clothes. She would then leave her establishment, heading towards a small refinery.

It would take her a good hour and a half to get there, all along the way she was continually thinking about her designs and her future projects. Her head was always with her work, her mind’s resting position was when focussed on the bits and bobs that ended up cluttering every facet of her life. Now that she was alone, with Goji having left the nest, her day to day consisted of either working for the family company or working for herself. From dawn to dusk, she would tirelessly endeavor. For it really wasn’t work for her, it was more a part of her life as a whole. She couldn’t stop herself from inventing more than she could stop herself breathing.

She reminisced of her younger years, where she would escape into the labs to watch the researchers conduct their experiments. The family staff had always treated her well there, stimulating her curiosity by showing her what they were doing. The team of lead developers almost took her under their wing to an extent. While not technically supposed to be her teacher, they never seemed to mind when Ro trotted up to their building on the daily. She would get into their notes and books, sometimes stealing away the scientific literature to study for herself. She couldn’t understand many of the words that she found in them, but over the years she gradually began to expand this vocabulary and associate ideas with the squiggly shapes. She became a bit of a science geek, something that Goji seemed to like to remind her of any time that it would give him a bit of impish pleasure.

894/500 Upgrade: energy pistol to 1 upgrade point
394/250 Refined Smith: energy pistol to 2 upgrade points

Ro still remembered when the Germa 66 research team had discovered that layers soaked in salty water encapsulated in an insulator would provide as a source for electricity. Connecting both ends through some sort of wiring would provide power to whatever device could be built for it. She was fascinated, eyes wide as the men and women bustled around the laboratory. It was a breakthrough, one that had got the group escited to the point that they were scrambling around to try to act upon it.

Of course, her father and the military heads constantly checked up on the researchers, seeing how they were progressing with creating new tools of war. They weren’t as pleased with the breakthrough as the scientists were. This was because they hadn’t adapted it into any sort of weapon yet. The fact that they had created a mobile source of long lasting energy was lost on them until they had been pitched it’s possible uses. At the end of the day, that was the one condition of their work. They were suppliers of war, and they best not forget it.

She promptly entered the refinery upon arriving. The manager greeted her with a toothy smile, escorting her through the factory floors. What she was here for was for the waste product of the oil cracking process. The black sludge byproduct of alkenes was just the thing she needed to forge her tech. Through using this stuff, she would not be limited to metals like the rest of the world. She had access to plastics and polymers of all kinds as long as she could get her hands on the raw materials.

Ro was taken to a back room where a tank of the stuff was preloaded into a wheelbarrow for her. Her heart sank at the realisation of impending manual labour. She was not going to look forward to carting this all the way back to base. She cleaned out her pockets to provide the man with his due, a little annoyed that he was charging her for something he would otherwise just dispose of.

Regardless, she gritted her teeth and got to it. There was no helping it, these hard yards were neccessary if she wanted to continue creating her bits and bobs. Sweat dripped from her brow and she thought for the thousandth time of her current position. Her ancestry, the great Vinsmoke family, were born into nobility. Heiling from the North Blue, they brought a tide of war and conquest across the seas. But now here she was, living like a peasant. It was disgraceful to the family name. Yet try as she might, she couldn’t seem to get out. Rokuju felt lost and helpless. But she would not give up the fight. Not now, not ever.

It would take her more than twice as long to get back to hers as it did on the way out, and upon arriving, she would collapse onto her sofa bed and lay motionless in a state of exhaustion. Her assistant appeared above her, poking her with the freshly made moulds to see if she was still conscious. An annoyed bark at him got him back in line. He produced the fresh moulds for the main components and casings. This method would make it possible to use such a delicate material as plastic and craft it into something immensely durable.

Ro thanked her assistant and snatched them from his hands and scurried off to the back room to begin her work as soon as possible. The chance to do some work on her technology immediately revived her from her state of exhaustion. She would slink back into the room once she realised that she had yet to refine her oil. She lugged the tank back around the side of the house and into a small barn-like store room. Inside was the small refinery. There she would load the capsule and flick the appropriate switches to start it running. A revving hum began, spluttering fumes before it picked itself up.

The refinery also fed the oil run generator that was positioned next to it. Both of which were made by Rokuju’s own hand. There were few systems like it in the world, the young woman being proud of this particular product. She wasn’t able to market this sort of thing though, electricity and plastics were not things that many people seemed to be interested it. It was always about weapons for people, the hoi paloy of her world only after things that would hurt another. She was fine with this, not shying away from weapons manufacture. It just meant that she would keep some of her inventions to herself. Ro left the garage after she had satisfied the start up preparations.

Scratching her back, she wandered back into the lab and over to some storage boxes. A rummage around produced some copper wiring and a few circuit bits and bobs. Hauling the box out onto the workbench, Ro emptied all the pieces that she would need to create the innards of the energy pistol. The wiring wouldn’t be too hard, just hooking it up to a reciever that would be tuned into a central system. The hard part would come from the core that would produce and form the concentrated energy pistol. She had to get this part right if she was going to be able to pull off the device.

(was gonna finish this but got free wc so meh)
exit
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