It's dangerous to go alone

[Kaili Talith]

It felt like ages since Kaili last had a customer who asked for a custom-built droid. For a shop that found pride in creating droids, Kaili’s time had been averted elsewhere for most of the time. Most of the time on droid repairs which, as much as she enjoyed it, she didn’t really want to do most of the time. At one point the workshop had been gathering dust to the point where she accidentally had a customer stumble in through the door only to see what at the time most likely would have been a health hazard. That was a few weeks ago by now and the friendship that stemmed from it still had Kaili a confused mess.

The message from a man simply referring to himself as [member="Alcuin"] had been fairly simple. He needed a droid to help in his travels, and Kaili would be happy to oblige. For the first few days after receiving the message Kaili had drawn up the concepts on what he might have wanted, but those still needed the man’s approval before she could go ahead.

It needed to be robust, it needed to be linked to a network of droids that he already had. It wasn’t a big issue, but the structure of said botnet still had to be explained to her. That could wait. As much as learning more about how other people from all around the galaxy used their droids in everyday life was a great hobby of Kaili’s, the part where she made money from creating said droids interested her a lot more.

Propped up behind the counter she waited for the man to arrive. An idle finger ran along the top of it’s surface.

Good. Most of the heavy dust was gone by now. Kaili could rest easy knowing that the man would not get the wrong impression.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Alcuin was not what you would call particularly friendly or graceful in social situations and similar. In the end, being a man utterly out of time, one couldn't really blame him for the slightly sour attitude and actions. Sweet and innocent wasn't exactly ever in his disposition and his life since birth had not done much to change that. But, this was not a social visit in his mind, hardly that at all. From one of his associates he had helped repair a droid for, adding some ablative armor to it, he had heard of a small mom-and-pop style shop that dealt exclusively in custom droids. That bit had caught his attention pretty hard, as the more he explored and got to know the current universe, the more he realized that the extant droids he was acquiring for his mission were useful, but he could honestly use something just a little more to help.

So, a few hours spent with an old, clunky datapad he had laying around, and he had a rough list of features, and a few oddly detailed and skilled sketches. It wasn't a talent he bragged on, as the Anefilt viewed it as an effeminate quality amongst themselves, but Alcuin was a rather wonderfully talented artist as well as a skilled smith and maker in general. The concept was loosely based on a spherical BB unit he had seen in his travels, and had quite liked the form of. It wasn't an exactingly detailed sketch, but it was enough to give some rough ideas, and hopefully the owner of this shop could take the ideas inside and turn them into something functional and fitting for his desires. He had the money, that was something easy to come by. Being a custom armorer and treasure hunter paid well when you didn't particularly care where or who or what you worked for in most cases.

Stepping inside, he pushed back the hood of the oilskin cloak he wore, shaking out long jet locks of hair, cold blue-grey eyes gazing about the shop. It was tidy enough, but here and there were signs of disuse. It wouldn't surprise him, not many people were terribly discerning of their droids, or so he gathered. They just hoarded them, focusing only on one individual task or purpose for each one. Certainly, he had been guilty of this with all the gadgets and the like he was collecting. Hopefully this would help him limit things. A short, almost curt nod was given to Kaili as his eyes met her, and he stopped and inclined his head a fraction in greeting. Whilst not explicitly respectful, the gesture was one of greeting in a polite and formal way, which was about as relaxed as he ever seemed to get now-a-days.

"Greetings... I am Alcuin... I sent ahead about an order, is this the correct place to speak on a customized droid?"

[member="Kaili Talith"]

 

[Kaili Talith]

Kaili had expected a rugged man to enter, and enter a rugged man did. Dressed for practicality over design, a choice considered most respectable by the young droid maker. He lifted the cloak and let his hair and face come exposed. Kaili reciprocated the polite head nod with an equally polite smile. The man confirmed that it was indeed he who was Alcuin and asked if this was the workshop he sought.

“Yes, I am Kaili Talith.” The kid nodded her head again. “I trust that your trip here wasn’t too difficult, Mister Alcuin. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She’d call it a gut feeling, but the man didn’t seem like a man of words. Wasting them on small-talk felt pointless and she got straight to work. She withdrew a sleek datapad from underneath her counter and held it up in front of her. Sweep, sweep, prod and the message containing the man’s order was brought up.

“Just looking up your order, and... Yep.” Kaili lowered the pad as she spoke to achieve the eye contact that was vital to creating repeat customers. “I have a pretty solid idea of what you want, but just to make sure... You wanted a droid capable of storing and facilitating transfer of data between an already existing network of droids. Am I right? Something a bit more robust than the average droid that can take a beating without losing much, if any mobility at all.”

[member="Alcuin"]