Novelux Sparkwright Polytechnic

[MintyMimix]

Sales and tents pitched themselves alike as an ordered chaos of voices and footsteps sprang forth. The air thickened with ambition and excitement as every would-be entrepreneur and businessmon greased their palms and put on their shiniest smiles for the Barovelt Trade Assembly.

In a joint sponsorship with the Barovelt Group, the Howard Sparkwright Polytechnic Institute hosted this seasonal venue to the give students the opportunity to make valuable industry connections and the public to see what future technologies awaited them! Some, like the Crumbelle Heating & Cooking Company, directly targeted the students: emphasizing how you — yes, you there — could be part of not just a team of the most talented innovators in thermodynamic products, but a family of chefs and designers spanning generations!

Others, like Fermlein Steel, took it as an invitation to show off their latest projects. They stood up towering boards of business charts and graphs highlighting their already skyrocketing trajectory of growth and profits. They even handed out free pamphlets showcasing their most sleek, modern train car models! "You better get in on this before it's out of your reach!" it all practically yelled. They even a massive map showing off the future of their rail network: “Connecting all of Commonwealth together,” the sign boasted, but only if they could get more investors and even smarter talent! Surely, anyone would want to be a part of this wave!

Nevertheless, the Barovelt Group welcomed any small business or new venture to join in! This was the free market at work, after all! From at-home inventors that just thought attaching spinning blades to a motor would be a nice way to get rid of weeds or family storefronts simply their selling samplings to the students, it seemed like everyone had their own personal knick-nacks and doodads to show to the city!

Of course, it wouldn't be a university event without being open to newer, more experimental showcases as well! Wires, fires, and snazzy attires sparkled like stars amongst a stormy sea of activity as students and professors alike hoped to grasp just a sliver of ever-elusive grant funding. Whether it was a convoluted combination of theories and models claiming that yes, perpetual motion machines were theoretically possible, or more business-savvy ventures highlighting how their newest piston design could reduce costs by 3.14%, they all hoped to get a piece of the fame and fortune pie!

<><><><>

Competition was fierce even between the more independent industrialists. What began as a shared spark of inspiration between a familiar Spinda and Helioptile across from one another soon erupted into the embers of petty war. Though their mud-slinging had been mostly drowned out by the crowd, their gesturing to one another was hard for anyone nearby to ignore.

“—can’t possibly understand the application! Y’all know just how much a spinning ink dryin’ machine could do to speed up print jobs? Everyone’s up in their ears with paperwork, why not speed up the process they can’t do anythin’ about?” Gare glared daggers at his contempary as he leaned on his machine. The massive metallic cylinder barely managed to hold on top of the wooden pallet as its dozens of pipes and valves jutted out in an oblong shape. The activation lever lingered dangerously close to the Spinda's foot.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Today was the day. Dust covers came down from the machines and contraptions devised by the college's brightest minds. Food was supplied, but few had attention to spare for such things when marvellous electromantic apparatuses were on display to obsess over. Even some artistic pieces were present, sculpted out of spare parts by the more eccentric undergraduates who'd taken societal philosophy electives. This was Sparkwright Polytechnic, after all – the student body at once intently practical, and yet always uniquely eccentric.

The campus convention halls filled up with students, faculty, staff, guests – and the Wayfarer security detail. The rooms brimmed with pokémon of every species. As of yet, no invasion or infiltration of Covenant forces had made its way in... Just an invasion of people who, by the sounds of it, were talking all at once.

"—excuse me, so sorry, do you mind? Just gotta get through, I'm hosting a table—"

In the west wing of the convention halls, a central platform enshrined Sparkwright's new invention. The Rift-Mender, he'd dubbed it – though only after an aide had threatened to shred his documentation if he didn't give it a short, pronounceable name.

"—there any goddamn bathrooms in this fuckin' place? Oh— uh, thanks, ma'am..."

The thing was small enough to fit in a 'mon's travel trunk, little larger than a cash register, but it was set into a throne of copper wiring, halogen bulbs, and strange nodules about the size of a car. This, then, was the portal unit's charging and calibration station. The assembly as a whole wore a sort of faint corona of energy, like dungeon artifacts sometimes did...

"Woah, would you look at that! How much d'you think—"

In only a few minutes, it would be time to demonstrate the invention. As such, a minor false-dungeon bound to an antique cabinet had been brought in for this purpose. Sparkwright himself was not yet at the podium – off to the side, Chesnaught Sam leaned casually back against the wall, her eyes on anyone who approached it.

"Behold! Through ingenuity and uncanny natural philosophy, I have unshackled the field of meteorology!"

Not long left...