Riventon's got an agreement to keep - helping Shinobu in exchange for the fact that she rendered some assistance to him. And, given the nature of the help, he's figured the best thing to do is get her to meet him at the UMBRA offices, where the equipment is. And that's why when she called and asked, he gave her directions to a rather nondescript looking warehouse in Mitakihara. A specific instruction to use a specific side door and twist the handle backwards, then down.
When that instruction is followed, the door opens not to the warehouse, but to what looks like an upscale corporate office. There's a receptionist at the desk - who is very clearly not a receptionist, but one of Eclipse's youma that looks like a robot - a negative energy core with a metal humanoid body built around it. Recognizing her, it gets her to sign in, and then opens the door in the reception room, leading to the UMBRA offices within Eclipse's stacked space. If one looks out the windows, they'll be greeted with the strange sight that is the Mitakihara skyline - upside down and far below the window.
The offices seem still a bit less busy than they ought to be, with the occasional roboyouma carrying documents or items from one room to another, and the occasional lab-coated scientist roaming.
But the door Shiniko is directed to is the one that reads "Riventon, UMBRA Director." Riventon opens it just as she gets to it - having been notified of her presence. "Good to see you, Shiniko-san - come on in and have a seat." Riventon's office is nice, but also seems to just lack any sort of comfort - there's no art, no plants, not even those all-too-common 'motiviational posters' seen in offices. But the chairs are large and comfy. "You can sit, if you like."
Shiniko has taken it all in stride, she figures Riventon is the type to emphasize his status and thus being led through a merry set of magical marvels before getting to the point is just part of that. The shadowy tendrils that keep her afloat wrap around her after she lands in the chair.
"Fancy office you have, Riventon-san~" Shiniko giggles, treating the roboyouma and the upside down skyline as the equivalent of the more mundane decorations and more mundane office would have. "I like what you did with the outside~."
Riventon nods a bit. "Well, not entirely all my choice. Some of it's standard fair from the parent company." he admits, honestly. "We used to need the space more than we do now, but if I have my way, we'll not only fill it back up, we'll be expanding." he says with a grin.
"So, I think I owe you some favors. I'm happy to get down to business. What would you like to work on - what do you want to know?" he asks, leaning against his desk. Notably, he doesn't sit down in his very nice chair. "We're kind of in the business of uncovering hidden knowledge from artifacts here."
"I've been in Labyrinths, I've seen White-san and some other mages throw up an extradimensional space to contain a fight, and it's all been very fascinating." Shiniko starts out, explaining quite where her interests are targeted right now, "I've even gotten my hooks into one of those once, taking partial control, but having to rely on someone else to create one just isn't my style."
She pauses a moment, and then continues, "So I'd like to explore ways to set up something like that, especially if it means I can set the stage of the fight to be to my advantage. Can you help me with that?"
Riventon nods. "I understand not wanting to rely on other people for something like that. Barriers... I know how to create them with my own magic, but I'm not sure if it's going to be applicable to yours. I don't know enough about the way your magic works yet to really guess which way I'd go. So you might have to let me take a look at wherever you source it from."
Riventon shrugs a bit. "I mean, I'll give you any help I can, but I'm hesitant to make any guarantees I can't be sure I can keep - I'll certainly do my best."
Shiniko magically tugs at Riventon's shadow, trying to draw it into the mass of shadows that surround her. It's a light and gentle tug, easily resisted if Riventon tries to stop it; and the harm done by it if she succeeds is minimal. Analyzing the action itself, however, might provide valuable insights. "I can do some magic while you watch, for sure~"
Riventon doesn't really resist - not conciously - but his shadow does. There's an odd pull on the mass of Shiniko's shadows, like Riventon's shadow is having a bit of a tug of war with her. It doesn't last long, because Riventon wills it not to. The minimal harm, the action - everything is fed into the device in his earrings, transferred back to the big system, and energy signatures and points and valleys are transferred into a strange combination of number-crunching and half-understood theories of magic.
"Yeah, that's actually really helpful. There are so many different kinds of power, and they all act in such different ways."
And when Riventon's shadow stop, Shiniko also does. Instead, she does some other magic. the shadowy hands that extend from her hair form a cup, and this fills up with an oily black form of shadow, which suddenly ignites into dark flames that suck light and heat of the room. "Something else to show off, then~"
Riventon tilts his head, like he's taking it all in for a moment. Really, what he's doing is sorting through the information being provided to him in rapid fashion, trying to make sense of it all, trying to convert it into something else. "What you need..." he muses "is a way to use your shadows to pull people into some sort of different space. That's what the barriers do, and in a different way, what the labrynths do." he says.
"Much like you did with my shadow... it's like grabbing ahold of a thread. Just at the edges of your perception, where this reality and the disreality intersects. I'm not sure how to... explain it clearer than that. I know for Devices it's actually a rather complex process, but your power seems slightly more... intuitive."
"But then, aren't shadows themselves a bit of disreality?" Shiniko mises aloud, her eyes growing thoughtful, "All they are is a trick of light, but I give them substance." It sounds like she feels like there's something she can do with that. "I'll have to think about that a little more~"
Riventon looks at Shiniko, and her shadows, considering it all. "Well, I've got some data points to work with. The way I look into things like this... it's not quick, admittedly. But I didn't promise a miracle answer." he says, walking around his office a bit.
"The more I can see you in action, though, the more data points I can gather. So if you should find yourself in need of a little backup - well, you already know how to reach me. And if you end up deciding you'd like to work for someone - same thing."
"Fair enough." Shiniko dismisses the ball of cold fire, and looks outside the window. "But let's not pretend information you get from this is meaningless to you, so the next bit of information you'll get about my magic will be in the context of me helping you, paid. Sound fair?"
Riventon nods. "That's fine. And you're right, it's not meaningless to me. Knowledge, as they say, is a power all its own, after all." he says, with a firm degree of self-assurance. "I think we have a deal, though. But it'll take me some time to work through what I've got." he adds.