*Camera pans up to reveal Raenef standing over a massive table covered in drawings, sketches, lists and ideas. Shin'en of the Chaotic Destiny stands to his left, while Infinite Freedom stands to his right, also looking over the table.*
Raenef: So…it's a go then?
Shin'en: *nods slowly*. Everything is ready.
*Raenef turns to Infinite Freedom*
I.F: You've come this far. You better follow through.
Raenef: As if I wouldn't. I put too much work into this to not. *Walks over to computer and loads up a new program, displaying a screen for final input. Raenef considers for a moment before slamming his hand on the starter key, executing the new program and story*
Alright, folks, it's time for a new tale and new take on the world of ToS! That's right, I'm changing it again, and this time, it's much bigger than before! Now this one is one that I've found to not been done before for ToS, or at least not yet. The inspiration came to me as I was playing through the game again, wandering around and just looking for possible ideas. I discovered what I needed in Palmacosta, at the docks. Remember that giant steam ship that just sits there? Well, that image led me to this right here.
I hope to hear plenty of honest feedback from you all, whether it's good or bad, what needs tweaking or needs changing. I am writing to entertain you all, after all. It would help to know what my audience would like.
City of Iselia
The sun's rays shone brightly through the open glass window of the quiet bedroom. Various pieces of metal and copper lay scattered on a nearby wooden desk, mixed in with various sketches of machines and parts. A half completed construction laid on top of it all, the various cogs and nuts and bolts that made it up still visible within. Its outer layer wouldn't be applied until the insides were complete. The creator wasn't much for a halfway finished job. The sunlight extended further, casting light onto the beige colored walls that was half hidden behind more sketches and notes. A small breeze lifted up a few pages, showing trace lines of dust behind them.
On the bed attached to the opposite wall, the resident and owner of the very room was dead asleep, his dirty-brown hair a ruffled mess as he shuffled around in his sleep. One hand dangled off the bed and twitched every few seconds to keep away from going numb. The loud snores were accompanied by light, shallow breathing as the quiet morning moved along. It wasn't meant to last, unfortunately, as the dreamer soon found a rude awakening.
"Lloyd! It's time to get up and get going! You've got business to do today!" a thickly accented deep voice called up from the stairwell. The sleeper, now aptly named and identified, responded with a groan and pulling the sheets over his head. "Lloyd!" He gave up and knew that his dad wouldn't leave him in peace.
"I'm awake!" He called back as he threw off the sheets and stretched. Lloyd Irving rose up from the mattress haven he'd been enjoying and looked about the room as his eyes grew accustomed to the morning light. A yawn and a few popped bones informed him he was indeed awake, and fortunately he hadn't overslept.
"You've got 20 minutes till the shop opens, Lloyd! Get a move on!"
If only by a few minutes, he hadn't overslept.
Lloyd got up from his bed and ran his hands through his ruffled hair before deciding to get a move on. He stumbled into the small washroom next to his bedroom and started the hot water machine for the shower. Steam began to fill the room as Lloyd quickly stripped himself of his bed clothes and washed up. The warm water worked its magic on him and he found his mind coming back to reality within a few moments. The clicking of the clockwork timer next to the shower reminded him of what little time he had to enjoy it. Before long, he was out of the shower and drying off back in his room, throwing on his work clothes as he heard Dirk start to open shop in the room below. Lloyd finished and turned to the mirror for a final once-over before heading out.
His hair had been cleaned and combed through, for all the good it would do to straighten it. It kept to its flourished and wavy style, reaching into the air and colored a brown hue. His boots were a dark tan leather with several straps reaching across from left to right, keeping them tight to his feet when done up all the way. His pants were a dark blue, lined with metal studs on the sides that ran the full length of his legs, the ends of his pants tucked into his boots. A brown leather belt circled through the loops of his pants, but several tips and holes could be seen in the leather, designed to help hold tools or parts on his person when his hands were full. His friend Genis once commented it was a utility belt meant for heroes, though he would never admit that it was what had inspired him to make it that way.
His shirt was a thin, breathable material colored white, long sleeved and kept tight to his form. It didn't display the muscle that lay beneath, but it did give him a decent appearance. Overtop it; he wore a light grey/brown mix vest, buttoned up to the third button which showed the black silk beneath it. His work uniform was tidy and demonstrated a good person who wore them. At least that was what Dirk claimed. Lloyd felt that they were too tight on his form, and preferred his looser clothing he wore when tinkering with his inventions. Hearing Dirk call out again, Lloyd gave a smile and a thumbs-up to the mirror before heading downstairs to work.
Emerging from the stairwell, Lloyd stepped into one of the most familiar sights of his life: the open wares and products of the Dwarven Metal workshop. All along the shelves on the walls and in the glass displays, workable parts and fully crafted machines of all sorts stood on display, polished and oiled to look their best. In the sunlight that had been shining through Lloyd's window, a new house-cleaning machine, an MDC-mark II (1), sat at the ready for sale. Its various pumps and brushes, as well as all the other necessary connections, sat primed and ready for the first customer to buy it. Fortunately, most of the fully built constructs were kept off, for the sake of keeping cool and less noise. If they were all running, Lloyd was sure the shop would've caught fire or turned him and his father deaf.
"It took you long enough, lad. I swear you spend too much time at night playing with those scraps you find. You need to focus more on what we have going on here than up in that thick head of yours." Dirk's thick Scottish accent chided him as the stout figure of the Dwarf emerged from the counter. He wore a similar outfit as Lloyd's, though tailored for his shorter stature. Granted, he did admire the boy's imaginative ways of fiddling with machinery. He sometimes found solutions to problems that Dirk had come to accept as being unsolvable and costly. 'Though that very money I save tends to go towards paying for the boy's mischief outside the shop. But I was the same when I was his age,' Dirk thought to himself.
"This thick head makes you plenty of money good and true and you know it, dad. Besides," Lloyd walked to one of the shelves and started straightening many of the pieces for sale to try and entice as many people as possible. "If not for me, who else would you trust to work on all these delicate money-makers?"
Dirk sighed and had to concede the point to the boy. He had taught him everything he knew about crafting machinery, developing the proper cogs and bolts that would give them the best ability, how to oil a machine to never slow for at least a month at a time, even how to substitute old metal and convert it into something as functional and reliable as newly crafted steel. It wasn't done just to demonstrate his Dwarven nature for construction, but more as a father to teach his son. He had to pass along his trade to someone, after all.
"I don't know how many customers we'll be expecting today, but I do know that I'll need you to run out for a couple of things. We're running short on some of our food, and I know we need a new bearing splitter after that stunt you pulled with our old one three days ago. I told you it's not designed for that kind of work, but you had to push it." Dirk looked behind the counter at their old and now broken bearing splitter. It had snapped in two after Lloyd's latest tinkering project.
"Well, how else was I supposed to remove those gears? Use my bare hands? I like keeping my fingers where they are." Lloyd complained. He turned to see Dirk's hard gaze on his form. Lloyd sighed and knew his father was right. "Alright, alright. I'll get a new one, a better one at that. Colette should have some new parts in to sell." Lloyd finished straightening up and looked outside. It was a clear sunny day for Iselia, the clouds having departed for the other side of the world to leave Lloyd with a beautiful day to enjoy. 'And I have to spend it doing work indoors…man…' Lloyd sighed again and turned the closed sign on the front door to open. "When do you want me to head out, this morning or this afternoon?"
Dirk stroked his beard in thought as he watched Lloyd. He could let him go now and get it done early, or he could make him work the morning shift and then go out this afternoon. If he goes now, he gets everything they need before the main customer rush would come in. If he sends him later, he can have him here to watch the store when the main business rush arrives. But still, the boy had worked hard last night, he knew that for certain. And hard work always has a reward to come with it. It was the Dwarven way.
"Tell you what. Go out and run these errands before 11 o clock and I'll give you today off. But you better be on time, or I'll have you cleaning the entire store from roof to floor!" he warned. Dirk knew it was enough to entice Lloyd though. He rarely if ever gave him such an opportunity. The Dwarf believed in the old ways of work: From sunrise to sunset, till every chore is done, till every task is complete. He did his best to rub it off onto Lloyd, and succeeded for the most part.
"Thanks, dad! I'll go do them right now!" Lloyd ran back upstairs to grab his traveling gear. The trek from here to Colette's family store was close to twenty minutes just to get there, barring any misadventures that Lloyd got up to. He always managed to find some sort of mayhem to cause or witness, though it's often more of the former. He soon returned with a small knapsack to carry everything he would get, as well as two small metal shafts that he attached to a clip on the backside of his pants. "I'll be back with the groceries and the new part before noon!" He rushed out the door before Dirk could protest.
"Wait a minute, I said eleven! Bah…" Dirk sighed as his favorite worker and son headed out. "Kids these days. You'd think the lad was out to change the world."
Outside, Lloyd was smiling as he made his way down the city's road, lined with streetlamps and various vendors of all sorts. Many of them sold simply food and other little goods that the people of Iselia grew and made. Being so far out from the other cities, Iselia often had to fend for itself, so as such, there was a hybrid market of both machine made and man made goods. Some of the stands caught Lloyd's eye, but the prices they intended to charge kept him away easy enough. He had to wave away a few of the more pushy ones, due to them recognizing him as being Dirk's boy. They weren't competition for Dirk, but more or less were part of his clientele.
Making his way further down, Lloyd entered the more developed section of Iselia, where many of the buildings had been standing since before he was born. Several were built from materials from the ground, such as brick or wood, and held a rustic charm to them. They held strong in bad weather, though most were used as apartment buildings and homes than workshops for fear of fire hazards. Intermixed with them were newer homes constructed from metal, and considered to be sturdier than the rest. Most were used as workshops for the mechanists and engineers who lived in Iselia, though there were only so many.
Lloyd's hometown was more of a transitory place for travelers, many stopping by to either restock during a journey or to rest. That's not to say the town wasn't lively of course. There were plenty of sources for entertainment to be found. On the other side of town was a dancing hall and bar/saloon for all to enjoy. Well, those of age of course. Lloyd knew Dirk had been in the saloon plenty of times, and had yet to see just what it was he enjoyed. He was caught every time he tried to sneak in after Dirk, to the point that the front door bouncer knew him by name.
Lloyd's musings were brought to a halt as he became aware of someone calling his name. Looking around, he heard it again before glancing up at a house on his left. It was a cozy looking home, made with a mixture of brick and metal parts. The lower base was all brick to give it a firm foundation, but metal adaptations were revealed as one kept looking up. Various pipes and exhaust holes were spread throughout the walls, some exhaling white steam into the clear sky. Out of one window was a head of white hair, eyes gleaming and mouth in a wide grin. "Genis! What are you up to?" Lloyd called to his best friend and companion.
"Oh, the usual: testing a new batch of ingredients from Palmacosta, taking notes on their effectiveness-" He looked back into his room suddenly as Lloyd heard a woman yell, "Turn off that flame before you burn the house down!", and grinned at Lloyd when he turned back. "Oh, and making sis mad at my supposed fire hazard. Just the usual. What are you doing out so early? Dirk usually has you working your butt off at the shop."
"He needed me to run some errands this morning before the main business rush came in. Some more fresh food and a new bearing splitter that I may have accidentally broken." He called back before spotting a tall female form emerge from the front door. "Good morning, Raine! Genis up to his usual fun?"
"If by fun, you mean setting up another one of his fanciful bomb ideas that could blow up his entire room, then yes. Can you do me a favor and take him with you while you're out? I have to run down to the post office to send off my latest report to Meltokio, and I would like to come home to a whole house instead of half of one." The elder Sage sister asked.
Lloyd nodded. "Sure! It'd be more fun to have someone to walk with anyway." He turned back to see Genis gone from the window. "Where did he-" His unfinished question was answered as Genis suddenly leapt from the window and caught onto a nearby metal pole that ran the length of the house from roof to ground. He swung down and landed with a flourish, as if expecting applause. What he got instead was Lloyd's smirk and Raine's sigh. "Always the showman, eh Genis?" Lloyd commented as he took in Genis' appearance.
Genis wore a small brown cap on his head, cocked slightly to the side that had likely been straight when he first put it on a moment ago. His white hair stuck out past the caps edges, with a few of the tips slightly singed from what Lloyd could see. He'd obviously been experimenting again when Lloyd happened by. A pair of goggles hung around his neck, the lens colored black to filter out light as best as possible. He wore a light brown shirt with a dark blue jacket overtop, lined with buttons from collar to the bottom of the jacket. His pants were a tan color and miraculously clean, ending in brown leather boots (2). A small cog was pinned to his chest where his heart would be, dusted off and gleaming in the light. He was carrying a small bag that clinked several times as he shifted around to get comfy.
"Did you make sure to turn off all your experiments?" Raine questioned. "No beakers left burning, no fuses left lit, none of that?"
"Yes, Raine. I made sure to turn everything off. I figured you would want me to go with Lloyd while you were out anyway. I need some fresh air, and this will do the trick." Genis replied.
Raine sighed. "Good. I should be back within an hour or so. If you're out longer, do try to stay out of trouble?" The pair nodded and Raine gave them one last look before turning and heading down the path to the post office. She turned back around as a thought occurred to her. "Oh, and Genis? No explosions. I better not see so much as one smoke cloud coming from the city, you hear me?" The younger sibling nodded and she went on her way.
Lloyd watched her go before turning back to Genis. "Ready to go see Colette?" he asked as he resumed walking, now being followed by the young chemist and best friend he'd known his whole life.
"You bet! And who knows? We might have some fun along the way!" Genis exclaimed. "After all, I do intend to make good use of my new batch of bombs."
"I thought Raine said no explosions? You know what happened the last time you went behind her back?" Lloyd recalled when Raine took care to dump all of Genis' new shipment from Palmacosta when he had been discovered making a new type of smoke grenade that was self-sustaining. Using a remote control, which may or may not have been partially made by Lloyd, Genis could control how much smoke would be produced and how long it would run. It was a curious sight to see when the Sage house was smothered in a white fog that clung to the house for two days straight.
Genis reached into his bag and held up a small black sphere with several prongs sticking out of it, a small cog resting on the top that was held in place by a small pin. "Who said there would be smoke this time?"
Lloyd laughed and the pair made their way down the road, laughing and spinning tales of their past antics and ideas for the week.
1. Literally, Maid Dirt Cleaner Mark II. Can you imagine how dirty a town like Iselia would be, with dirt roads and the likes of Genis wandering around?
2. Genis outfit is inspired by an image I found on another site, which I'll post on my profile.
And that's a wrap! So what do all of you think of the first chapter of the Steampunk world of Tales of Symphonia? We've met four characters already, and each has been envisioned with a new take. I plan to detail Raine's outfit later on, once I figure a more proper look for her.
Read and review, please! And I sincerely mean, review. I really would like to hear people's opinions on how this looks and reads. Thanks again ahead of time.
