Solutions d'éclairage

 Marty the Thwomp never liked leaving the cave. He always complained it felt like leaving half your body behind. Problem is, a River needs to keep moving, and if money is going to flow, sometimes you need to head upstream to keep it coming.

 

Today was a bit different than the types of dealings that usually pulled him away from Argo. For one, it was completely legitimate. Nothing off the record, no deal under the table, it was the kind of work a gruff guy like Marty normally didn't have the finesse to wrangle, but he built enough seedy connections that the charmers and grifters could connect him to the cleaner upper echelons as a favor. Of course, just because it was all clean on the surface didn't mean it didn't have a darker purpose.

 

The crumble of Concord and Cash left his shield crumbled. They had kept the Kobbers' attention for the year, but if any of them started getting curious enough, they could start following the money and paperwork. It wouldn't give them much dirt, but the thing about dirt is that's where you bury the kind of thing you don't want found, and for a rock who once owned half the stone that Argo is built out of, the dirt has been put to work burying a hell of a lot. That paranoia had kept him quiet at times, but if the Kobbers were going back to active duty soon, he'd need a new distraction, one he'd find all the way across the world in a city he couldn't feel more out of place in: Paris. 

 

Even as the world got weirder over the last decade and a half, the people walking the fancy streets of France's capital still weren't used to seeing a big block of stone thundering its way down the road. Marty wasn't the kind of Thwomp that could levitate at length, doing what looked more like slow hops forward, each descent on the cobblestone attracting attention. It paid sometimes to be so obvious, a rock solid alibi corroborated by joes on the street had saved his bacon in the past, and it was even nicer when those passersby weren't folks he paid off for the cover story to boot. However, Paris irritated him, and the sooner he reached the destination the better.

 

While the big rock was the eye-catcher, he by no means traveled alone, especially with whatever his equivalent of hackles might be standing tall. He couldn't be making himself an easy target no matter where he went, so he was flanked by two bodyguards. As he approached his destination though, he instructed them to stand outside; no need for intimidation today, although he was already squinting at the garishly bright facade of: Solutions d'éclairage.

 

Radiating colors from small stones lining an awning for an otherwise relatively humble thin building squashed between other businesses, the "lighting solutions" name tended to not draw as much attention as its dazzling display, but truthfully it was just the in-town office for a company that had to do more of its work outside of metropolitan areas than in one. Marty only grumbled at the ostentatious decor before he worked his way through the door, but one of his bodyguards was quite enamored with the lights.

 

"Aren't they lovely, John? They remind me of those rock salt lamps! A regular rock salt rainbow..." the red-haired woman said dreamily, but her compatriot was standing like a sentry beside the door, trying to look utterly serious.

 

"John? ...C'mon, Marty's not here right now, you don't have to have your spear stuck so far up your-" 

 

"While I'm on the job, I'm ATTICUS," the man insists, refusing to look at his compatriot or the light display. His eyes started out at the streets as he stood like a soldier, but that only made his female companion scoff and lean towards him to tease him.

 

"You're taking this Highguard business way too seriously," Scarlet said as she tapped his metal shoulder, "We're on a public street. How's anyone going to show up and take out a giant rock like the boss? Huh?"

 

Atticus frowns, Scarlet grinning a bit that she could even make him budge that much. "You are awfully cavalier for a girl raised by a clan of assassins."

 

Scarlet's dismissive sputter made Atticus's eye twitch, "Yeah, and when I'm doing that kind of work, I take it dead serious. But I'm not on the clock right now, am I?"

 

"...You... literally are." Atticus's eye twitched more.

 

Scarlet scoffs, "When the boss is away the chickies will play." 

 

"Chickies?"

 

"Do I not feel like a young bird to you, John?"

 

"I'd say more of a mosquito." Scarlet snorts, Atticus allowing himself a smile that he quickly regretted as Scarlet's grin only grew wider.

 

They were an odd pair to be sure, one that met through their new work under Marty. They had come to Argo initially, both drawn by word of a promising new mercenary group called Concord, but the Thwomp had funneled them away from that line of work. Concord had already begun falling apart, but Marty needed private security and was willing to pay well, putting together a Highguard to protect him during operations. Atticus had learned to come to loathe whenever he'd be paired up with Scarlet, but Scarlet always tried to make it fun, her attention turning back to the glowing stones up above. "At least if I was a little bug I could fly wherever I like." 

 

"Until you get smacked."

 

"I'd only take blood consensually, so I'd never get squashed," Scarlet says, before a wicked grin crosses her features, "You'd let me drink a bit of yours, right John?" she whispered, Atticus's face reddening.

 

"There is no John here to take blood from!" 

 

"Haha, alright cool boy, Atticus can keep all his precious fluids then," she says, sticking out her tongue as she continues to try and pass the time away from the boss's grumbles and glares.

 

 Inside Solutions d'éclairage, Marty expected to be bombarded with even more garish displays, but work had to be done there after all... so mostly it was just the walls adorned with decorations that could almost pass for Christmas lights. He spares them a little glance, noticing plaques meant to edify people about the actual glowing rocks as well as photographs nearby sharing company history, but he wasn't going to waste time idling around when he came here on a mission.

 

Fortunately for the ornery Thwomp, he was expected.

"Bonjour and good day to you, sir!" the chipper snake says, politeness and enthusiasm balanced even though the guest cared little for either. Marty was never good at gauging someone's size, such was the way when you were a giant stone that could squash them all flat without much thought, but this little snake made him think he could slurp up the guy like a noodle. It was only about half the height of a human and yet not very long, and Marty didn't quite care for how difficult it was to tell where adornment ended and the snake's own scales began.

While his thoughts were tearing down the snake, the chipper serpent was happy to puff up the Thwomp instead. "We are quite ecstatic to have a businessman of your caliber here this day, Solutions d'éclairage feels like a natural fit for the mistress's homeland! In fact, if I'm not mistaken, a being such as yourself may already be lightly familiar with our premiere product," he says, chuckling and covering his mouth with his tail as the pun slipped by Marty's detection.

 

"You may call me Montgomery," he finally introduces himself, "please, come with me," he indicates with his tail, Marty following the snake who had to cut down his natural swiftness to account for the fact a rock was struggling to slip through the halls of the small building. It did, however, give Montgomery time to prattle on.

 

"Solutions d'éclairage's not-so-secret weapon is our incredible harnessing of a magnificent natural resource that only rarely occurs naturally: the Glow Stone."

Montgomery's tail indicates a large specimen hanging from the ceiling in the room they found themselves in, Marty at least paying some attention to it now that he saw more than the small shards used to make the business sparkle elsewhere. "A Glow Stone is the result of unique chemical reactions that are quite difficult to come together in nature, but when they do, they produce a reliable lighting source and one with a most impressive effect. Observe," Montgomery says, pulling his lower body around. His lower half was covered with what might be called a vest, filled with many pockets that he fished through quickly with the end of his tail. Passing a smaller Glow Stone to his mouth, he produces a tiny jeweler's tool. Despite the hammer being so small, he gave the Glow Stone a hard thwack, chipping off a good chunk of its corner. Marty never cared for chiselers for instinctual reasons, but after shedding a new dull and lightless piece, the Glow Stone quivered, rocks starting to form over the damaged edge until it resumed something close to its original shape.

 

"The very same luminescent qualities caused by the specific concoction within the stone also, as a byproduct, allow it to self-repair!" Montgomery looked to Marty's face for some hint of wonder or fascination, but the Thwomp was just a bit wide-eyed, perhaps spinning over the implications of the reaction in his head. "I must admit, it's not quite as miraculous as first it appears. Observe the light emitting from the damaged sector," he moves the little rock back and forth. While the rest of the rock gave off an even glow, the damaged piece emitted scattered beams, Montgomery careful not to aim any towards his guest's eyes. "Proper refinement of the rock is required to make it emit light effectively, and a Glow Stone only can grow so large before the reaction ceases. It is through Solutions d'éclairage's years of study and evolution that we have managed to discover ways to create, cultivate, and house Glow Stone in ways that make effective use of its unique benefits, and I'm sure Argo will benefit immensely from your planned implementation of our creations..." 

 

"TRES BIEN! OUR GUEST HAS ARRIVED!" Like a hurricane of glittering fluff, the true owner and founder of Solutions d'éclairage entered the room...

 

 "Oh it has been a dog's age since I've seen a Thwomp!" Jacinthe approached, her movements delicate and subtle while the rest of her was the absolute opposite. Adorned with her own Glow Stones and glistening like the night sky, the owner approaches Marty with a delighted expression one often devotes to newborn puppies rather than a gruff rock. "What a marvelous emerald hue you are!" She lets out a little gasp before realizing something, "Or perhaps the flight has nauseated you so thoroughly! Monty, do please lay out a few mats, subtly so as to not offend our guest," she says, at least turning to the snake when saying it despite not lowering her voice much at all.

 

Jacinthe turns back towards Marty, who was trying not to second guess his plan on seeing Jacinthe Kuranya in the flesh. Mallory's cousin, Jacinthe had only been in Argo during her youth, following her mother out of the land when they sought opportunity outside of Ulimaroa. While it would always be debated how much of Solutions d'éclairage's success rests on her now retired mother's shoulders or her own, Jacinthe had certainly been pushing the company into more and more business arrangements to spread Glow Stone across the world and into sectors like decorative lighting.

 

"Your salessnake here has been telling me all sorts of stuff I already know," Marty says to start the business side of things, taking a bit of pleasure over seeing Montgomery wilt. It wasn't fully true, but he had come to discuss Glow Stones after all, so the Thwomp wasn't going in blind. "Argo's got too many dark corners and uneven light, and even the entrance only gets half a day of the sun. If we want to keep building up in the cave, we need something like-"

 

"Like a lighting solution!" Jacinthe finishes happily, clapping her gloved hands together. "It is such an obvious fit that I was slapping myself for never noticing it myself! Such a dreary pale city will shine like a summer beach once we've installed our Glow Stone lighting!" 

 

"We want the full sunlight experience," Marty chuckled, his private thoughts the cause but it was easy to play off as just a reaction to Jacinthe's exuberance.

 

Montgomery interjected, "Ah, well, Glow Stones do not emit something totally comparable to sunlight."

 

"How do you mean?" Marty fires back.

 

Montgomery tries to find his spine, which was harder to keep straight for a snake, "Well, it is primarily a benefit that we are not a substitute, you'll find! Far less heat production and lesser radiation, you can still get a tan if it is focused considerably but the risks to skin health are nearly non-existent." 

 

"I wasn't asking about skin. I need Argo to be covered with these things. Our lights aren't cutting it, letting people lurk in the dark."

 

"Less of a cave, more of a dance club!" Jacinthe observes with a giggle, "Oui, Argo will undergo a glorious transformation once it is adorned with Glow Stones from tip to tail!"

 

The lightning business didn't exactly require cutthroat tactics, allowing the naivety of this rich girl to let others lay easy traps like the one she was waltzing right into. Jacinthe Kuranya's Glow Stones were the real deal... but so to were the Tubes, with Mallory traveling the globe at present to take inspiration from other metros to further develop them. If that Shadows had taught Marty anything, its that rich families are prone to incessant quibbling, and if he could have two Kuranyas competing for the right to build their "gift to Argo", then surely he could pull the Kobbers into their orbit. He just had to make sure to fan the right flames, and they'd spend no time looking into his perfectly legitimate interest here and only care for trying to keep Argo from being torn apart by competing businesses.

 

For now, he'd have to stomach these eccentrics, but come the start of Solutions d'éclairage's project to bring light to Argo, he could hide in the shadows and stay off the Kobbers radar until they're gone...