Gogonji adjusted the mobile Awakener unit that he had cinched to uppermost part of his right arm, which he had extracted from his jacket to allow for more direct contact with the crystal chamber. Within the case, already filled with ceruleum, sat his Scholar Soul Crystal while the Paladin Soul Crystal lay nestled in the original Awakener unit. He had gone through the same arduous testing with the mobile Awakener unit - which he found himself desperately needed a proper name for, if for nothing else than to be able to stop just continually referring to it by its relation to its older sibling - as he had with the original prototype on its lonesome. In fact, he had been all but forced to test it before those simpletons at the Garlond Ironworks would even let him out of the building.
It had been easy enough to sway them with gil and promises of credit with the original prototype - it was big and bulky and he was supplying all the materials, along with being a vague, untested thing. While they were initially curious with the designs and helped with some improvements to components that made sense to them, the whole thing seemed like it would be a flop and a money-sink that they cared little about beyond the money going into their own grubby pockets. Now that he was on a smaller, more streamlined second iteration with improved technical specs wrought from his own personal study, they were suddenly much more interested. After all, they had originally dismissed his brilliance as the babbling of a nutter with a half-cocked idea and too much gil to throw around... and now they potentially had something quite valuable on their hands. They weren't going to be so easily deterred with gil and a few empty promises this time around.
It turned into a miniature lecture hall, where Gogonji was the professor to a class of vision-less dullards. He explained how the ceruleum acted as a a substitute for a body's natural aetheric composition, the lightning crystals the body's natural electrical current, and the Soul Crystal itself as the heart of it all. A few of them had been intrigued by the inner workings and details and missing the overarching goal the device sought to achieve, a few others just started blankly and just a few steps removed from drooling. One had gone those few steps and beyond, having fallen asleep at some point during the Lalafell's in-depth dissertation on the quantification of one's aetheric make-up.
It didn't matter, though, in the end they wanted a demonstration with the finished mobile device, and the bulk of their Roegadyn employees made refusing them seem unwise. He had used the Paladin Soul Crystal then, challenging one of them to a mock sword fight before and after the device was activated. Of course, many of them called him a charlatan - stating, truthfully enough, that he could've just been faking his inability to fence before the activation of the device. They demanded further proof.
So, he decided to oblige them. After all, he still needed to see if his ability to utilize the Awakener was due to his access to the Echo or something even the common uneducated plebeian could benefit from. He called for a volunteer and strapped his mobile Awakener unit to the Midlander's arm. Leaving it off, he tested the fellow's ability to wield a blade - which was not unlike his own at the start of this grand project. It was only after setting that baseline that the Awakener was switched on, with a few half-hearted warnings about a Hellsguard pining for a dead Sultana muttered just before the flick of the switch.
The man staggered a little bit, but said that he wasn't having any of "those goofball delusions" that Gogonji had alluded to. Instead, his descriptions of how he felt were much closer to those stages when his own Scholar Soul Crystal had opened up to him and allowed him to partake of one of its hidden secrets. This was further verified when, in doing another test of his fencing skill, he almost instinctively fell into the offensive Paladin stance colloquially known as the "Sword Oath." When pressed on the other side of the coin, the defensive "Shield Oath," he returned little more than a blank look and a witless shrug of the shoulders.
It was around then that the Lalafell divested the fool of his wondrous creation before he damaged it in any way, and filed away the knowledge he had gained. It seemed the device did work for those without access to the Echo, but it merely let them bypass the Soul Crystal's choosy attunement process. Which meant that, given an Awakener and a Soul Crystal, one could be bootstrapped into learning any of the lost jobs of Hydaelyn. If only the stones themselves weren't so rare and closely guarded, and the component cost of creating an Awakener not so prohibitively expensive. Gogonji alone had only been able to afford the creation of this one by almost draining the entirety of his remaining liquid assets, leaving such a gadget as little more than a trinket for some greedy Monetarist with no understanding of its true capability.
On the plus side, this meant that the Ironworks' interest in the device quickly faded when there didn't seem to be any feasible market for it. And, as long as they got their cut of the profits, they would freely make more for him... if the horrendously expensive base materials were brought to them, bought with his own coin. A willing group of trained opo-opos willing to help in his ventures for a banana or two. It seemed like a sound enough agreement, all things considered.
And now, Gogonji was on the threshold of tapping into that hidden potential that those fools couldn't even comprehend, that they couldn't even access. He flipped his mobile unit on and embraced the wash of memories of that ancient Scholar for a moment before shoving that mind away into the cage waiting for it in his subconscious. A few quick gestures and Ezra was at his side, jingling and chiming in curiosity at her master's new arm-borne accessory. The Lalafell had made all his previous discoveries more or less on his lonesome, and he was feeling rather eager to show them off to one of the few individuals he felt could really understand his brilliance.
"Look, Ezra! I already tap into the forgotten knowledge of Nym with this device," he explained excitedly, as giddy as a child as he motioned to the mobile Awakener. "And now, I will obtain the knowledge of a long-deceased 'Sworn through the original unit."
Activating the original prototype had become almost second nature at this point, given how many runs Gogonji had done with it. In no time at all it hummed to life, the dial set and the symbol on the rock within the ceruleum bath gently aglow. The Lalafell had unconsciously steepled his fingers eagerly as he watched, sending a few glances Ezra's way as if to silently say "See! See! It's going to work!" The Fairy herself just gave a confused metallic chirp and canted her head slightly to one side.
"Of course it's safe!" the eldest Gegenji child responded dismissively, his left hand already hovering over the glass of the central core. "I've already familiarized myself to the souls asleep in both stones. If I can so easily conquer both separately, subduing them together should require little more than the smallest increase of effort."
Ezra didn't seem too convinced, and gave another worried chime.
"It'll be fine, Ezra," Gogonji impressed upon her as he himself impressed his fingertips upon the original Awakener's central unit. In a flash, the Sultansworn's memories flooded into him, and they were forcibly directed down into the subconscious cell with the Scholar. The Lalafell felt a thump of sorts emanate from his head and reverberate through his body, as if he had bumped headfirst into a closed door. Annoying, obnoxious, but nothing overtly dangerous. And it was gone soon enough, leaving wonderment in its wake. "Ezra, my sword; quickly now."
The Doman Dunesfolk stared blankly forward as the Fairy flitted off to get the dingy blade he had purchased back when he obtained the Paladin Soul Crystal. He had wanted to replace it with a finer blade, but the mobile Awakener unit had been a much larger financial priority. And it seemed to have been the proper choice, as both the tactics of a strategist who plotted away from the front merged with those of a brute of a man who knew that blood-soaked theater far too well. Violet eyes looked upon the cheap blade that was brought to him with both the distaste of the man forced to wield it, and the tactician who knew far too well the importance of an army's equipment. With a monumental sigh, Gogonji forced down this ethereal bile and took hold of the weapon.
"Now..." Gogonji breathed. "Watch."
His motions with the sword were as if he were using the Paladin stone on its lonesome, though the occasional tactical musing slipped in from the Scholastic side on how it could be improved. With a few quick flourishes, the Lalafell scratched a few simple mathemagical formulae into the side of a nearby bookcase with the tip of the blade. All the while, the smile under that jade mustache of his grew wider and wider. In his zeal, Gogonji removed his hand from the original Awakener to draw the runes onto the blade itself with his fingertip, and the Paladin knowledge faded away into fuzziness. In his rush to complete the action before the Hellsguard's experiences had completely left him, the Dunesfolk's digit slipped and bit into the edge of the blade itself.
"Chikusho!"
The blade clattered to the floor, discarded and forgotten as Gogonji stuck the injured finger into his mouth to stem the flow of coppery-tasting crimson. Ezra was upon him in an instant, her tintinnabular cries of concern filling the musty air of the shack. After much coaxing, she managed to get the Lalafell to present the injured finger, and the wound was quickly sealed up under her gentle healing touch. This didn't keep Gogonji from giving it a few test flexes afterward, though, despite his trust in his little partner's healing prowess.
"See? Told you it would be fine," he stated, almost jokingly. He was rebutted with a litany of angry jingling, and he raised both hands up in surrender with a wry smile. "Sorry, sorry. Look, that was user error. I broke contact with the base unit - it wouldn'tve happened if I had two mobile ones."
How like him, Ezra must've thought - he had just managed a mostly successful test and the Lalafell was already looking into the future, not content to just bask in the victory he had just had. His mind was going over how he was going to re-accrue the funds necessary to create a second mobile Awakener. His mother's economic lectures came foremost to his mind - perhaps a little playing of the markets was in order. Not to mention he still had a few favors he could call in for some materials that a few buyers would be certainly willing to drop a pretty gil on. He wanted to save that for a rainy day, though.
No need to rush, of course, even though his goals lingered so close to achievement that he could taste them. He just needed his second mobile Awakener to fully test the extent of both sets of knowledge, and so he could comfortably gauge any long-term effects from maintaining more than one attunement. If those all went according to plan, he could be on a ship back to Doma the next sun, ready to shove his findings into his archaic father's dour face.
Then he would see. Then he would understand. Then he would accept his son's brilliance.
Then he could truly return home.
~