Welcome to Gaia! ::

Location:


The Arsenal is located on the corner of Main St. and Arwood Ave. Just down the road from the famous Grove of Arvins. Needless to say the location is well traveled and though distant from the Inner city is one of the best-kept and patrolled areas in the outer city. Its Whitewashed buildings and climbing ivy help to set a romantic and upper-class setting only a few blocks from the (true) north gate.

Description:


The Decker Arsenal (formerly the Sunburst Forge) is a quaint two story brick and plaster building adjacent to one of Latents busiest streets in the outer city. A nine-foot high security fence surrounds the lot, and dominates the view of the shop from the main road. The shop itself sits in the northeast corner of the yard (fig.1) Though located in a fairly romantic section of town Dante's shop is anything but new looking. The soot from the chimneys and a long period of abandonment have made it somewhat of a minor eyesore compared to some of the more well kept stores along the street.

Three chimneys rise out of the top of the Spanish-style tiled roof, the ceramic roofing a necessity considering the amount of smoke and fine embers emitted by the forges chimneys. Though producing enough smoke to make it easily distinguishable at just about any point in town it, does not typically linger and quickly dissipates over the town. The fence that surrounds the shops yard is topped with eight inch long cast iron spikes angled slightly towards the outside of the wall for decoration and to discourage any attempts to climb over the wall.

A large steel double gate is on the front side of the fence (facing Arwood Ave.) to allow larger shipments of steel or other materials to the either the shop directly (via the forge’s loading door) or to the yard itself for storage and organization. This gate is nearly always locked from the inside and has no external lock meaning such a gate is only really accessible during business hours. Though perhaps not the most attractive of buildings Dante's shop is a functional and well maintained location that serves him well. Despite its appearance the shop is here to stay, and with its excellent location and existing reputation it is a prime location for such a business.

Layout:


First Floor–

The front door of the shop is elevated approximately three feet off of the usual sidewalk. A set of brick steps descends from either side of the main door with a small landing and a doormat at the top of the steps. The steps are lined with a simple but elegantly designed iron hand rail and attached to the rails supports are the words ‘Decker & Co.’ in brass letters. Above the doorway hangs a wooden post with two hooks hanging down, these hooks may have at one time held the shops banner, but for now remain barren.

Just inside the front door is a luxurious wood lined showroom, with a small brass bell over the door ringing gently every time the door is opened or closed. The walls of which are lined with glass cases of various sizes adorning the walls around the shop filled with various mundane and exceptional weapons. Each case has a small area etched into the corner of each case reading in a scrolling script ‘Please ask for Assistance.’ The showroom terminates with a large oak desk that seems almost as if it were taken from a Bar. The tall desk has a platform behind it that is actually six inches off of the showroom floor, to allow the showroom attendant a commanding view of the room.

Behind the desk is a single large wooden door that leads out of the showroom to a small storeroom for overstock items or some more valuable items that may not be completely secure. This door ism usually locked and the attendant and Dante are the only ones that currently have keys. Inside the storerooms are various shelves and second locked door. The size of the doors and their proximity prevents both doors from being opened at the same time as they swing towards each other. This means a maximum of three people can come through at a single time.

On the opposite side of the showroom is Dante’s Workshop. This room is filled with wide worktables and drawing areas, whole corners are devoted to holding blueprints and small steel ingots are stacked on various tables to help hold the blueprints in place. Several small circular frosted glass windows let diffused light in illuminating the workroom, as well as half a dozen small work lights that are clamped onto the edges of the work tables. A large industrial fan helps keep this room cool being so close to the forge area just on the other side of the workshops southern wall. A metal door separates the forge area from the workshop. This ‘wall’ is actually a sliding temporary well that can be folded and slid via a set of rails to one side of the shop to allow for easy access from the workshop to the forge.

The forge is twice the size of any other room in the shop (with the exception of the basement of course) against the outer stonewall are three large stone forges. Each forge is lit and unless Dante is actively working they are simply idling, burning but not roaring. Above each forge is a smoke hood that leads to the shops distinctive three separate chimneys. Each forge looks very much like the other, as do the three identical anvils that are set adjacent to the forge. The stone floor of the forge 9for obvious fire prevention reasons) is clean and uncluttered; hundreds of different metalworking tools line the walls, from Hammers, and punches, to dies and metal cutting guillotines. A set of 1, 3, and 6-ton impact hammers powered by a power source in the basement line the east wall with a English Wheel completing the list of forge tools.

A small two-person elevator sits just west of the stairwell and only travels from the basement to the shop level; its winches and motors are stored adjacent to it in a small soundproof closet in the workroom. A stairwell that runs from the basement to the second floor with a wide landing on the first floor level. This wooden staircase is isolated from the forge by a stonewall, and a steel plate reinforces the stairwell it from any potential attacks coming from the show room much like the workshop is protected.

The Basement-

With the exception of the Elevator the Shop’s Basement is not much different than many of the wine cellars. Arched brickwork reinforce the shop above them and provide exceptional strength for what is only a two story building, even if the stone slab above the basement is an impressive six feet of stone. This shelter provides excellent humidity control for the metal ore stored down here as well as providing a safe haven for Dante should the town come under attack. Though the basement takes up the entire floor, because its separated be dozens of brick columns and arched ceilings it has an almost labyrinthine feeling to it, as due to the arrangement of the materials you cannot simply walk from one wall to other directly. At the southern corner of the basement is a pair of back-up generators in case the shop is forced to provide its own power, as well as an emergency food and weapon locker to assist in defending the forge in case something should breach Latents outer wall. All told the forge could conceivably support over a hundred civilians with food and water for three weeks and weaponry and ammo for up to a week should the supply yard gate hold that long.

Besides the maze of materials that is the Shops basement; at the center of the maze is a section of columns that is bricked up to produce a small separated room. There does not seem to be any door or latch to open, in order to enter this area. As it stands it is a mystery but perhaps its better that way…

The Second Floor-

The second floor is the living area of the shop, and is separated into three areas. Directly ahead of the stairwell lies the common area. A large screen TV in the corner of the room dominates this area. A matching (if worn) couch and love seat combo separate this area from the kitchen/dining area. Directly behind the seating area is an oak dinner table with four wooden chairs, and a breakfast bar that opens into the small but workable kitchen area. Heading back towards the stairs is a wide hallway that continues around the stairs and back towards the eastern wall of the building. To each side of the stairwell is a pair of bedrooms.

Each of the four rooms on the second floor are Spartan by comparison to most homes but certainly more spacious than most dorms or hostels. To one side sat a simple twin sized bed covered with a common brown colored wool blanket. Next to the bed sat a small desk, and a set of dresser drawers, a small bookshelf built into the wall near the door, and taking up a good portion of the right hand corner of the room was a small bathroom with a shower and toilet and a sink. It was cramped for certain, but definitely livable and better than sharing a bathroom with someone else.


People:


Dante Daniel Decker-
Role: Owner and Chief Armorer.
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 178 lbs
Eye Color: An almost dark Olive Green or pale Emerald Green
Description: Neither particularly tall nor particularly short Dante stands an unimpressive five foot nine inches capped off with what has grown out into a somewhat shaggy short haircut that stops just above his eyes. A much more relaxed form then his usual military buzz cut, Dante’s fiery red hair has long since remained mostly hidden under his now almost trademarked cowboy hat though a corner stone of his appearance his hat is not truly a cowboy hat if anything it could be closer considered a fedora than a true cowboy hat, but alas such titles are hard to remove after four years and such his ‘cowboy’ hat has remained with him.

Dante’s’ skin tone is fairly common for an Ankaa, that is to say he is extremely pale, though not of sickly skin tone and does not seem to tan regardless of exposure. His eyes area faded shade of Emerald green though to be honest he rarely leaves them exposed, for view most commonly a pair of rimless designer sunglasses hide his eyes and all to often his intentions from those he spends time with. Though fairly quiet and often times fairly preachy when he is around most of those he is an acquaintance of, he is often very open and giving to those few he has become comfortable with. It is in fact the few people who he is close to that may perhaps individually know more about Dante then the entire combined mass of those who are merely acquaintances. It is in this way that Dante has made some very close and long time friends and still kept to being a fairly unknown fighter amongst most Leviathan Stadium residents.

Dante is extremely physically fit for his wiry frame, though not overtly muscular, the work of a forge does demand some strength and as thus he is well built, his unusual training regiment of long hours in a hot forge countered by long hours of stretching and running tends to keep him from really bulking up much, it does however make for an incredibly lithe body form and one that is very quick to react and parry, as well as strike when he has to.

Inventory:


[Coming Soon...]

Examples:


In no particular order.
[01][02][03][04]
[05][06][07][08]
[09][10][11][12]
[13][14][15][16]
[17][18][19][20]

Customers:


These are the people that can provide you with a letter of reference for a custom item from Dantes forge. Most are willing enough to give their consent as long as you behave yourself and act in a suitable manner. Some may make you prove your worth, while others may judge you based on other criteria. It is their decision to make. Please PM the person of choice before hand and let them know what your trying to do, and then meet with them somewhere accessible so that such a recommendation can be verified.

They are all nice folk, show them courtesy and they shall return it. Cross them and fear their wrath.

Kanashimi Kurai
Wistomaniac Darkchild
Winter Rose Darkchild
Nedyfay Norrell
Enki Leviathan
HonoRaven
Vahn Fah
Tellus Jade Leviathan
Silver Alexander
Sunstrike
Maximos
Evan White
Ruuvan
Faeriun Decker
Shouyin
Scyllua

Customers I owe Art to-
These are people that are lucky enough to have a 'get into store free card' they do not require a reference for a custom, and despite being required to show up IC are pretty much guaranteed a freebie.

Designated Hero
Ecks X
Psychofish
Maximos

If you have a question for me directly, and do not have a reason to be IC at this location please PM me and I will answer your question as soon as possible. Please keep all OOC in this location to a minimum and only include it in this thread if accompanying an IC post.

So the store was officially open, it had taken three days or so to finalize everything and take items from the safe and put them on display but the shop was essentially ready to go, it of course lacked two things. First it lacked advertising, not a bad thing by itself as Dante wasn’t necessarily doing this for the money, and given time word of mouth would grow. Not that he wouldn’t assist such gossip by placing an advertisement in the paper soon enough, but that could wait.

Second he lacked customers, a symptom of the first but none-the-less still as important. He realized he’d been running a custom shop for so long the thought that he might sell regular items for travelers was probably a tad hard to grasp for some. Such was the market, however with everyone on the move there was perhaps more money to be made in the selling of mundane articles to travelers than a few highly priced and prized custom weapons.

He had considered the local competition and dismissed it as his usual merchant mind over complicating issues. There were resources to be collected here, contracts to be finished and of course peace to be contemplated. After his rather violent and difficult hunting trip in the desert it was nice to have access to fresh water and a shower ‘on demand’ as it were. That did not mean the silence of the foothills wasn’t missed, but some things (such as material resources) made Latent a much better choice for his forge. Such was the life of a merchant it seemed, he went where the people and pieces were.

Dante had been up since dawn in his workshop fighting with a rather troublesome turbine section and its linkage to a rotary chamber mechanism. Why Dante was attaching a steam turbine to a transmission and rotary chamber was perhaps the best question that could be asked at the moment but luckily for him there was no one around to ask such a question. The rotary chamber had seven indents in its surface that disappeared beneath a curved piece of metal that sealed each chamber as it came in line with an opening. In truth it looked like the base of a giant gun without a barrel.

On the table lay a similar system attached to what looked like a four foot long chainsaw, both drive systems and the turbine were about the size of a basketball in diameter, far too large to be carried by a single person for any notable distance considering their mass. Which would probably explain the mass of steam pistons and reinforced steel joints that made up the skeleton of some metal monstrosity…

Though really that would be more surprising if it weren’t Dante doing it. As it were though he seemed to be happy fiddling with this and that. He had a small mounting of cast parts set to one corner of his workshop mostly cast the day before. At this point he was merely assembling the sub assemblies so that they could be fit to the frame. He finished attached what appeared to a be a conical devices with three hoses coming out of it to the back of the revolving chamber mechanism and using torque wrench secured the eight screws that attached both a balance weight and the conical devices to the back of it before pushing it to the far end of his work table.

After having taken a quick measurement of the base of the conical device at the back of the rotary chamber with a set of calipers he walked over to one of the metal skeletons ‘arms’ and checked the diameter of the conical device against the inside of what seemed to be a securing collar of some kind. Obviously the collar was meant to allow for modular changes to the ‘hands’ of the beast and now that both Chainsaw and chamber were equipped with their Modular Attachment Device or M.A.D. as Dante had referred to it on his hectic blueprint the actual work on the insides and locomotion of the beast could continue.

Dante’s stomach rumbled loudly as if in response to his mental notes to keep working, realizing he’d had no breakfast and was pushing deeper into Lunch territory he decided it was time to take a break. He put down his tools and walked through the forge to the stairs, jogging upstairs to the kitchen for some bread and such to make a sandwich.

Dante rolled his eyes as he heard the small bell above the showrooms door begin to jingle. Being directly above in the kitchen Dante heard it loud and clear. He was not happy about however as he held in his hands the very sandwich he had come up here to make, and he hoped eat.

"Just a minute..."

He called down, and began to quickly make his way across the upstairs common room, down the stairs, into the forge, into the workshop and finally to the set of double doors between him and the showroom. Catching his breath he swung the workshop door inwards and closed it behind him turning around in the small store room to find an empty shelf to put his sandwich on. Finding no decent place he finally decided to rest it on the inventory clipboard and hoped it wouldn't be long. He mentally made a note to box Maers ears for being gone so long, for a paid employee he had certainly taken his time collecting his belongings.

"Always when I'm eating..."

He commented quietly to himself and pulled open the second door of the closet appearing behind the desk to greet Fae... He would have commented on her being a sneaky b***h, but he was far to surprised to see her there to mentally comment.

"Uh.. Fae-"

He stammered as he walked around the counter to greet her, still a tad flabbergasted that she was there, with no advertising having gone on he could only assume some twist of fate had brought her here. This was not good, not necessarily bad, just not necessarily good either. With time ticking down and an unknown threat lurking out there for Latent he wasn't sure if he could finish up these prototypes in time to make a difference. At least with his wife present...

"...what are you doing in Latent?"

Dante took the flyer from her and read it silently as she continued talking, Dante taking it all in a piece at a time before placing it on the counter, he would have to find a place to tack it up later.

"Id say he gets his mercantilism from me, but breaking into my workshop and stealing your spell books is probably more likely from my side, then his industrialism."

Lucian certainly had come a long way since he first saw him and gave him his last name, a rather unorthodox choice for a man not even dating a women to take when she was unconscious but it was better he had a name, any name other than none. His thoughts turned to the girls and Little Wu who was occupied tending to the girls back at the plantation.

“Wu really is a great girl, I hope she’s getting some rest occasionally though…”

He smiled as he thoughts about Wu, but the smile didn’t last long. He knew if Fae was here he would have to tell her that he would be gone for a bit. Of course saying it directly wasn’t necessarily hard, but how the hell do you start that kind of stuff off? Dante had always been decent with word but sometimes they failed him miserably. This was one of those times.

“…But Fae I need to tell you I’m a tad occupied at the moment, and may be for some time. I opened this forge back up to fulfill a contract. A contract that’s rather important and now that Lucian is in town one even more important. I’m here to work on the contract to improve Latent’s defenses.”

Yeah that sucked, it was true of course and all but it certainly was not put as delicately as he would have liked. In fact he wondered if he could have said it anymore over dramatically. Day one and already he had been through a flurry of emotion and he was not expecting it to be like this. Certainly not expecting Fae, at least not yet. If he wasn’t so scatterbrained he would probably have moved onto anger by this point. Fiery temper as he was the hate inside him had burned for the last few days it had driven him and pushed him deeper into this contract, and now that he was making progress he wasn’t sure how well he would handle his family in town.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m going to be a bit distracted for while.”

If that wasn’t the blatant truth than he was a liar, he had discovered a lot on Barthavos, but more so on the roads back to latent and he still had very little insight into what had happened. With everything he had seen the lives he’d touched on the road back it stood to reason that he was astoundingly confused to find most memories of his trip missing. Not amnesia just a blatant gray fog rolling through his mind. Had it not been for the incident at the cafe earlier in the day he probably wouldn’t be so focused on it but now he fully realized he needed to work, work to understand why he obfuscated such profound things from himself. Things that had made him so conflicted inside, yet blissfully ignorant on the outside.

“It will probably be for the best anyways, we always get tangled up when were in the kitchen together and Lucian could use your help right now.”

…And that was that, he wasn’t sure there was much else to be said, and though he wanted to just hold up his hand to keep her from asking questions, that would be rude and certainly not how she should treat his wife. After all saying he’s going to be purposely driving himself into his work was bad enough. He at least should leave her open to respond. Not that he wanted to here her response in fear of having tipped off her fiery temper, but he had to do this there were no ‘ifs’ it was as serious as any cancer and just as painful for him to sit back and not work actively to solve this problem.

Ack…

It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to leave, he hadn’t been expecting her to be truthful but that didn’t mean he wanted her to just up and leave. That was that though he had just been far more efficient than he had been planning. Not a word of discourse or disagreement meant bad things he could tell, even if she didn’t say them directly some things were very apparent to the smith. Through out all of her exit, his tongue merely hung limp in his mouth just a bit sad and shocked expression on his face as she left. Though apparently struck moot by his own effect he frowned when she was finally out of sight, as much as he knew he should he did not go after her. Once she was truly gone and he couldn’t feel her in the immediate area he finally spoke out loud, barely a whisper but he had to say it even if she didn’t hear it.

“Im sorry Faeriun…”

It had to be done he told himself, his mind reacting to the logical conclusion but his conscious still answered back ’I know!’ and after each repetition he answered his own logic in a more aggravated tone before he finally lost control of himself and slammed his hand down on the countertop in frustration his tongue finding the volume he yearned for earlier.

“I KNOW, DAMNIT! I know…”

He took a deep breath and held it in letting his heart rate slow from his outburst. Hearing his own heart beat in his chest several times as it began to slow before he finally let his breath out. His heart rate slowly winding back down he turned around and opened the small supply room closing the door behind him and ignoring the sandwich as he head into the work room and laid his head on his workspace with an echoing thud. Dante wasn’t the sort to go on a self destructive rampage especially when there was work to be done but for the moment he let his head rest there and closed his eyes to get his head to shut up while he tried to refocus on the work in front of him.

“meh…”

Dante removed his head from the desk and flipped a paperclip to the other side of the worktable before standing up and quietly walking to the forge. If Maer was gone, and His mind wouldn’t stop beating him self up over Fae and his recent runaway emotions the best thing he could do was focus on something else. Not wanting to bang endlessly on the good steel Dante looked around the shop for something to use, the scrap bin had just what its name implied scrap, but all the pieces there were too small to use unless melted back down and that would take too much time to effective in this stress relief exercise.

Not far from the Scrap bin however was a dustbin and tick from its top were three pieces of old rebar, not rusty but definitely in the ‘used’ area of their life span. He’d forgotten about them having found them in the basement probably left over from the construction of the shop, but since they were stored in the moisture-controlled basement they had stayed in fairly good condition. Now the mild steel in rebar is not a particularly great choice for a weapon by itself but mixed with some better quality steel and a bit of heat you could make a perfectly serviceable blade out if it. And little bits of better steel were just what he on hand.

Taking some binding wire from a spool near one of the forge Dante laid out the three pieces of rebar and added a few thin strips of fine steel and wrapped them all together tightly so they wouldn’t shift around in the fire. That was the easy part of course… Switching on the fans below the forge on he watched the fire begin to roar as he waited for it to reach hot enough temperatures to tack the pieces together. Placing the bundle in the fire as he went to get some larger tongs and he gloves. From this point on he would be dealing with exceptionally hot metal.. That was the point of pattern welding after all, its got to form one cohesive structure.

Once he was prepared and the bundle had began to fuse he used the large tongs to withdraw the orange hot mass of steel from the fire and carried it quickly to one of the impact hammers. Holding it with his tongs he pressed on the release pedal, forcing the mechanical hammer drown onto the steel squishing the bundle slightly and forcing out any air that might be left between the pieces Once he’d passed the entire length of the bundle through the hammer he pulled it back and just tapped the pedal once the hammer forcing down on the steel and holding it against the anvil below before twisting the tongs making the whole bundle wrap around itself like one giant piece of liquorish. The metal had cooled down with all this manipulation to a dark red and Dante quickly moved back to forge and reinserted it into the fire before it cooled too much letting the heat from the forge bring the steel back up to the bright orange color of before.

Once more Dante took it to the drop hammer and pressed down on the foot pedal, the electric motor driving a fly wheel that forced a large hammer head downwards with a ton of force onto the bundle shaping it into a long thin rectangle from its liquorish stick shape of before. The Blank of pattern welded steel was now almost too long to work with so Dante took it over to the forge stuck the first half in the fire and left it there retrieve his six pound hammer. Returning he placed the placed the half heated sword onto the anvil and aligned a section of orange hot metal with the flat edge of the anvil striking the overhanging part first at the tip and them quickly moving in towards the edge of the anvil to fold the piece of steel into a ninety-degree bend. Picking up the piece I placed the tip against the anvil and struck the cool section of the sword folding the metal over onto itself and struck it so as to force as much air from the joint as possible.

Once more into the fire and the ‘Scrap sword’ that he had chosen to call it for now was now on its way to being more then just some left over steel.

Now that Dante had a strip of metal that could actually be made into a sword he had several options as to how to accomplish this. Though because he wasn’t trying to lengthen this project anymore than he should, with other work that was supposed to be taking priority. So in order to save time Dante went with one of the first methods he learned about forging; the Draw and Fold method. Though this was not always the best method for some swords because of its mixed material choices Dante needed a good means of homogenizing the steel if it was ever going to be battle ready….

Ching-a-ling-ling

Came the store bell as another person came in though the front door of the shop catching Dante off guard nearly ruining the sword he was working on by twisting it off the end of the anvil. Dante put the hammer down on a nearby workbench and marched angrily towards the front door, growling all the way. Coming to the workshop he maneuvered around the metal superstructure that was the frame work of his steam powered armored suit. He opened the door into the back of supply closet and took a deep breath so he wouldn’t seem so frustrated when he emerged from the other side. His calming attempt successful he closed his eyes and opened the door leading to the main shop opening once nearly through the door his mouth already moving before his vision had fully adjusted to the light.

“May I help you?

Oh, Mr., Lassanger.” Dante smiled and closed the door behind him as he walked up to the oak counter that separated them.

“What can I do for you today?”

Dante just smiled at his friends response, he had to recoup some of the frustration he'd just locked away for later projects somehow and picking on Ruuvan seemed to do the job, at least for now. Dante watch him draw the weapon and place it on the counter to which Dante promptly picked it up with the tips of his fingers and let it bounce a bit as Dante judged its weight and general balance. His face crumpled up as he seemed deep in some arcane calculation , but then faded as he put the weapons down and picked it up by the handle running the blade along the back of his finger nail and judging by its sharpness how much work it would need, and boy did it need a lot barely a cut into the nail at all, and certainly no blood.

"Yeah you definitely need it sharpened, but I'll be honest with you I'm fresh out of Quick Stones so I cant be much help to you. I don't even have enough to install any in the sheaths either which is gonna hurt my profits this month.

I actually put a wanted sign out front for some adventurer to go retrieve some for me but so far no takers... I need quite a few of them if they are to last me awhile."

Dante wiped the sword down with and oil cloth to remove the finger prints he'd placed on it while weighing it and put it back on the counter for Ruuvan to retrieve.

"To be honest its all a bit depressing having opened up so recently and not having any of it in stock."