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The booming bass of dubstep boomed and thrummed through the workshop, making any passerby glance towards the double-paned, plexi-glass security door leading to Nethaniel's "office." The rows of weapons encased in hard foam were all covered by heavy fire-retardant sheets of linen cut to fit each container. This doubled as a way to keep dust and any aerosols used within the confine of the H-shaped room. The usual whir of the ventilation fans were drowned out by electronic fables, 8-bit blues, and chirping jazz.
The scene itself was bizarre for the contradiction living and working behind the glass doors. Seated at the farthest most stainless steel work table in a tall chair, Nethaniel observed through a black magnification lamp at his current work. His sidearm rested in pieces beneath the illuminating lamp, on a bright blue anti-static table mat. The Smith & Wesson SD9 VE was a dependable tool when he was out on investigations, however lately some of his latest work had proven that this mundane weapon couldn't handle much more than the weakest of the 'Others'. He needed to find a way to help level the playing field without bringing a small arsenal with him capable of leveling a city block.
He pushed the magnification lamp away and rubbed his eyes. His work thus far for the day had his nose buried in a large variety of tomes and scrolls talking about enchantments of lore. In fact, on the top right corner of the stainless steel table, a stack of four soda-can thick books rested on top of each other with the pages facing towards him. On the opposite corner he had a soldering iron, a rack of miniature power impact engraving tools, and a cup full of pencils, pens, markers, and crafting knives with corks shoved onto their short, razor-sharp blades.
Nethaniel looked to the final items on the table. Five of the SD9's sixteen round capacity magazines sat in small cradles that held them off the table and allowed easy manipulation to reach all sides and angles of the metal bound around the spring and plastic cartridge plate.
"Fire. Water or Ice. Soul. Air. Hmm, what else? I'm forgetting a couple of things."
His baritone voice mumbled his thoughts, drowned out by the still playing dubstep music above. With an exertion of Will, he looked up at the seemingly holographic design template of improvements he wanted to make to his pistol. The magazines would require the most work. The notes he scribbled about them reached down and down and down further he scrolled with a swipe of his finger. The barrel, spring, and slide would get small enchantments to them but, they paled in comparison to what would lie in store for the magazines and trigger group.
He leaned back against the frame of his chair, feeling the cool metal through his undershirt and business shirt. He mentally plotted the amount of time his sidearm would be out of action and cringed at the number that he came to rest on. "Almost a full week." He grumbled and Willed his schematic back into existence to look at it again. This was even the cut down version of what he originally planned. Of course, he also thought that he could convince the Bureau to assign him a larger caliber pistol, like one of the coveted fifties they had in the East wing basement armory.
Nethaniel shook his head, feeling his hair and ears wave about from his movement. "No point in wishing for those. They would require an even longer overhaul for my field of work." He looked toward the rack of engraving tools and picked one up with a crimson band wrapped around the wooden grip. He brought the magnification lamp back down over the first of the pistol magazines in its cradle and started his work, looking up at the schematic wherever he Willed it into existence to reference his progress. The smell of the workshop is soon that of compressed air from the engraving tools and the hint of metal on the tongue. The buzzing of the tools drowned out by the music as passing members of the Bureau no longer paid heed to the thumping bass and whining electronic melodies their coworker used to muffle his own work and drive him through to completion.