Beat and Heat II

[InvertedMonkey]

This scene takes place well after dark, vampires welcome.

The stage needed work. Nothing serious, but some care to prevent it from collapsing beneath the feat of some hapless thrash metal break-out band. The insurance hit alone would be a dire wound, not to mention the damage it would do to the club’s rep and popularity. So the stage was shut down for a few days, and roped off. But the club stayed open. They have a sound system, after all, and a bar, and some other attractions besides. No live music would mean a dip in traffic, but Ramona had an idea that might bring in a few more bodies than otherwise.

Beat & Heat
Blacksmithing Demonstration @ The Forge
It Doesn’t Get More Metal Than This

The Forge has had a functional smithy since long before Ramona had taken up guardianship of it, wedged under the mezzanine, blocked off from the dance floor by a chain link fence. She’d worked there before, it was part of the club’s appeal, seeing metalwork and hearing hammer blows right alongside the furious bands up on stage. Why not capitalize on that? The flyers had gone up in all of the usual spots, and a few unusual ones. Local clubs and hangouts, sure, but also malls and community centers, places that might appreciate an obscure and outdated trade on display. Plenty of people would come, Ramona was fairly confident. Half the folks she met had mentioned an interest in seeing her work, once she’d told them her occupation.

It would’ve been a long night for Ramona alone, but it’d been easy enough to get some help. Blacksmiths are an insular, tight-knight community, and it takes hard work to make a real career out of the trade. Once she’d put the word out, she got quite a few offers for help. It was an opportunity for them too, after all, to show off their skills, market themselves to another audience. Even one of her old teachers, Rick the grizzled old troll, had agreed to come out and put on a bit of a show. It was a bit of a challenge, getting everyone comfortable in the space and with the work they’d be doing; they all had a tendency to be particular about what tools go where, and how the shop should be set up. Things had finally started to go smoothly just as patrons had started to arrive.

They were a couple of hours into the night by now, the blacksmiths working in shifts, taking onlookers through demonstrations, then stepping out of the shop for a bite or a drink, and sometimes a chat with an interested patron. The music thumping in through the sound system is a little less extreme than usual, more punk and metal than grindcore and industrial. Ramona is working. Lost to the song of metal, the rhythm of the hammer strokes, the lovely, intense, overwhelming heat. Sweat glistens on her arms and shoulders, runs down her face and neck, makes her hands clammy in the thick work gloves. A fellow smith is explaining as she works, “So Ramona has her billet,” the merged and fused bar of glowing-hot metal she has created from layering different purities of steels together, and then folding and folding and folding it upon it’s self, “And she’s gonna stretch it out and start shaping the blade.” The hammer comes down sonorously, throwing sparks that smack against her heavy leather apron and chaps, each strike flattening and lengthening the block of blazing, heat-softened metal.

Ramona will exit the shop and be available for social interaction in due course.
(i.e. As soon as people arrive to interact with!)

[InvertedMonkey]

-1G for Hardened Mask

[Evelynn East]

Evelynn stuck out like a sore thumb, here. The Forge is cool, and she actually kind of liked the place, but she felt like she was going to get laughed out of the place the moment anyone actually saw her. That or no one was going to see her and she was going to get crushed by the crowds of large, scary people with tattoos and big muscles.

Still, she stuck to the outside of the room and managed to make her way to the actual forge. And once she saw Ramona, she felt better, making a beeline for the Summer Queen and finding a spot to wait and watch while she did her work. She offered the ogre a quick wave and watched eagerly as the other smith explained what she was doing. She had a sketchbook in her backpack, but she left it alone for now, more interested in watching and absorbing as much of the demonstration as she could. It was actually a bit of a struggle to make herself pay attention for any significant length of time, because her mind wanted very badly to run off in some direction to imagine the wondrous sorts of things she could make with skills like that. Not to mention the sorts of things she's already promised to work on.

Once she had the opportunity to do so, Evelynn beamed at Ramona and finally offered her a proper greeting. "Hi Ramona! That was awesome!"

[Malcolm Green]

A mountain moves through the heat and the clamour. Normally the Forge was not the kind of bar Malcolm Green would usually appear in. His preference was for dingy dives and dead spaces where the emotionally dead and decrepit hid from the world; the Forge was a place of sound and fury.

To say it stirred the mountain's soul was an understatement.

Beer in hand he moves to greet the Iron Queen, his interest in the smiths art momentarily satisfied. Through the press he moves with an unusual ease: the crowds simply part - his height, his burning eyes, his stony visage, all work in his favour. Do you really want this walking monolith to stop and look down on you?

"Ramona. Evelynn." He intones as he draws near. "Good show. I like it."

[Alessandra]

Ale had seen the flyers, and remembered Ramona from that carriage thing a while back. She regretted losing touch with the woman, who seemed like she could have a good time, so she decides to go.

She throws on some black jeans with a vest, which was held together by two buttons, positioned nicely to show the color of the red bikini top she wore under it. Not much held the vest in place, but she wasn’t one to care. It showed of her tattoos and it was comfortable, someone didn’t like it, they could address it with her. She had on her steel toed boots as well, cause you never know. Her makeup was a little more heavy, red lips and smokey eyes, but not trashy. It worked with the outfit.

Blushing before she exited her car, she made her way into the club. The Savage took in her surrounds, noting where the bar was and any exits should shit go down. Cause again, who the hell knows these nights.

It wasn’t hard to miss Ramona, who had already seemed to have a following. Walking up to the small group, the Italian smirks,

“Long time no see Ramona, how’s it going?” the accent was heavy, but the playfulness was still there.

[Fisher]

The moment Fisher had seen the flyer she knew that she had to be here tonight. There was a large degree of professional curiosity as an Arrow to know if it was a traditional blacksmith or one of the reenactors that made arms and armor. Either way, the entire profession was pretty anachronistic in this day and age, just like much of her professional training, now that she thought of it. Granted, her people didn't have blacksmiths, mainly wood and stone carvers, but there wasn't really much call for the title medicine woman under the occupation field of a job application either. Modern government kind of get a stick up their ass about certifications, which would lump her well into the realm of alternative medicine and snake oil salesmen.

Rather ironic, she thought to herself.

She arrived in her '78 Chevy Scottsdale pickup and got out to stretch as she scoped out the place. It looked like it had seen better days and the music was loud even in the parking lot. She wore a pair of tight bluejeans and some black leather boots. She decided to forgo her usual buckskin jacket as she figured a forge would be sweltering in the summer heat. So she just wore a thin white linen shirt with some embroidery around the hem, collar, and sleeves. However, the sleeves were partially rolled up her forearms.

Fisher walked into the club and was sucker punched in the face by the heat and intense noise. After recovering from the inital blast, she quickly identified the forge area and made her way to it, gently pushing by people to get a better look. It didn't take her long to work up a sweat just standing there watching and she began to wonder if white had been the best choice to wear tonight. She didn't think it would be this damn hot but it wasn't like she was overly modest anyway so it didn't bother her much. Yet despite her discomfort she was captivated by the woman working the fire and the metal. She listened intently to the explanations and judging from the people around her this Ramona person was pretty well known and popular.

Fisher nodded to several people politely that were nearby, but with everyone clamoring to speak with the woman smith she joined them, yet remained silent and waiting for a point to speak.

[InvertedMonkey]

Ramona doesn’t have much experience with marketing herself, especially not on this scale. Oh she’s handed out business cards before, but this sort of demonstration party thing is new to her. The fact that people have actually shown up is a delightful surprise on it’s own, but the notion that a fair number of them would want to talk to her specifically had somehow managed to elude the ogress. She hadn’t been paying much attention while she worked, lost in the siren song of funktionslust. Then the bouncer guarding the door to the smithy admits one of her colleagues, and she looks up, exchanging a few words about work in progress, before hanging up her apron and gloves and going through the door herself.

And there is a mountain standing there.

Really, you could be forgiven for having Green be the first one you notice in a room, especially when he looks like he’s standing there like he’s been waiting for you, even if he’s not the first one to speak. The other greetings quickly catch up to her though, first Eveylnn’s, then… Was it Alice? Alison? Ramona tries to place the name of the tattooed hottie, whom she’d last seen… wow, almost a year ago now. No, the accent, Italian, that’s right. So it must be… Alessandra! There’s a bit of triumph, confident that she’s remembered correctly, and she grins at the three of them. “Hey guys!” This is more ‘center of attention’ than she’s ever really had any experience being, but she’s still glowing with satisfaction and confidence from working the hot iron. Also sweat, ash, and oil, shining here and there.

“I’m so glad you could make it.” She says to all three of them at once, missing, for the moment, her other friends in the room. “I offered to show you something, didn’t I?” She says to Evelynn with a smile, then turns to Ale, “And you too, I think. It’s Alessandra, right? It’s going great,” she grins, “What about you, enjoying the show?” The two Lost had already said as much, she glances at them, “Anything you guys in particular want to see or see again, any questions?”