The sailors' conversation continues on. Apparently there was a defeat at somewhere called Ba Sing Se that the army has still not fully recovered from. The western front is being reorganized. As they get drunker, their thoughts become more disjoint and less sensical.

If any of them look likely to black out, Tarinda might try to corner them in the bathroom and use that to cover some less delicate inquiries about the opposition.

It seems they're going to be decamping in a pack.

So much for that.

They break into song as they stumble back to the docks. It's probably an old favorite, given the way it extols the size of their ship's mast in comparison to others.

Cute.

She goes about her routine, saving up and inquiring after sources for phonograph parts.

The main obstacle is going to be getting all the fiddly little metal bits made. There are a few blacksmiths in town, if she knows what she wants well enough to get someone else to make it.

She made a sword once. It got cut down into a montage in the canon edit but she did make the entire sword. She pokes around smithies looking for anybody who'd let her rent time.

This one has no time for hobbyists. This one is up to his ears in work, if she'll apprentice for a while he'll let her do a few personal projects. This one on the edge of town will let her use the forge at night, if she can prove she knows enough not to burn the place down.

She will not burn the place down!

Sure, okay. What does she want to do, anyway?

"I want to make some custom parts for a hobby project."

"What sort of project?"

"It's gonna look like this -" She draws him a sketch.

Headscratch. "Looks fancy enough."

"It's gonna be neat."

"If you say so. Tools're over here, mind you put them back where you found them. Use your own materials, of course. She's yours anytime after dusk until dawn."

"Thanks!"

And she comes by in the evenings to make progress. She can skip the occasional full night of sleep; she doesn't have exogenous drugs from home, but she can bounce back from abusing tea.

After he sees his forge still intact the next day, the smith is content to leave well enough alone.

Then soon she will have all the metal parts she needs for a demo/prototype model.

She'll need something to record sound on. Plastics are unknown, but wax is available.

Wax works! She buys wax and sculpts it.

She sings a song into a cylinder. An aggressively earwormy little melody, competently if not gorgeously delivered.

Her coworkers are curious about what she's been doing with her evenings.

They can come check it out! The phonograph plays her song. A backup wax cylinder can record anything they'd like to try.

...Wow. What sort of things does one even say to a cylinder?