A student fiddled with a primitive camcorder. The thing was bulky and finicky, but it was still useful to have around. They set it to record and helped another run a final check on all the equipment. The team that was working in the lab was pretty diverse academically. There were old students as well as new ones. None of the new grads that just entered the co.m.p. sci department believed these safety measures were necessary, but the seniors knew all too well. The design and testing of unknown circuits and materials are unpredictable. There is no pattern to predict them.
“Clear!” Another student shouted, hurrying everyone behind an acrylic shield.
“You ready Eva?” Our student grabbed their camera and followed the rest.
Eva nodded, hair tied up in a bun, dressed in a white lab coat. She was designated as the lab rat to run it again, since she could somewhat neutralize out of control mana. A human fire extinguisher, in a way. Eva gave an exasperated, but not defeated, smile.
“Conductive properties of Azulite, test 7, simple spark circuit.” They clapped once for audio reasons, gesturing to start.
Eva hesitantly approached.
She spread a blue dust thick on the workbench. Crushed azulite. It wasn’t ideal, but for a stone of this hardness, it was the easiest way to manipulate it. If you prepped the dust properly, the gaps in the powder were a negligible part. She traced a circle through it with her finger, breaking it with ‘constraints’ that went through the center. There wasn’t much space, so Eva had to trace the provoking words with a blunt pencil. She packed down the dust, then used a thin, concentrated stream of mana to ‘burn in’ the circuit’s path. Outside the circle, she burned a small, filled circle about half the size of a finger, and connected it ever so gently to the outer rim.
“Moment of truth,” she muttered, glancing to the group that was silently cheering her on.
She pierced the traces gently with a nail and slowly poured a nearby colorless liquid into it. She only added enough to fill the rim, letting the mana seep into the middle on its own. She ran her fingers over it, tinting the neutral mana a very light blue. Thankfully it was proven that this act didn’t change the properties of the mana used, or else she’d be being chewed out for ‘contaminating samples’. It was more of a primer than anything, so it’s user can set the circuit off. She took a large step back.
“One pi of mana.” Eva made sure the camcorder could hear her and snapped her fingers. Everyone had their own way they set the metaphorical primer off. For her, this was just a habit, and it felt wrong to set it off any other way. The words and vision of the spell, the way in which mana was ‘provoked’, was already written down in the circuit, so she didn’t have to say anything.
There was no reaction. Not out of the ordinary. She crept back to it, drained the mana, and poured two outer circle’s worth of colorless mana in this time.
“Two Pi of mana.” She snapped again. The circuit glowed slightly, but not a lot.
As was par for the test, she kept increasing the voltage. At 6 Pi and up, some crackling started to form, but a member of the team recognized and dismissed it as undervolting. They kept going.
“16 Pi of mana.” Eva snapped.
A bolt of lightning jumped out of the circle’s center, scorching the area it touched. It’s stream was thick, about a meter high, but quickly dispersed. The tape that had been recording their experiments hadn’t stopped recording since. The team beamed but kept a steady pace of increases and notes. The spell soon became unstable with more Pi, growing to the size of a shorter person. Impressive for something spawned from a circuit barely larger than two fists.
“19 Pi of mana.” Eva snapped.
There was always a This test, Bolts spat up even higher than a person but broke from control. Everything within 3 meters was burned by its plasma.
The shock knocked Eva back, bolts spitting all over her. Miraculously, she wasn’t burned. The lab coat she was wearing was burned to some degree, but otherwise she was unharmed. Some of the mana that hit her didn’t dissipate, floating as colour-stripped motes from where she was standing. Boy was she glad to be a human battery currently
A few team members went to help her up, the rest were looking at the results. The traces within the circle had shattered. The circle itself was barely holding on. The dust, which had been compacted before, showed large and clear cracks. Where the traces had been, a small hot ring of melted together gemstone took their place. The semi-opaque gem had a surface resembling a mirror.
“weak conductivity at low voltages, high, even amplified conductivity, yet delayed output at higher ones, or so it seems.” Eva chuckled. If you didn’t know her, you’d easily mistake it for a mad laugh, what with all the soot and charmarks on her person and whatnot. “I guess some of us just found our grad project.”
One wet cloth later, Eva exited the lab. Part of their job with borrowing the lab was making sure that they left it better than they found. Maintenance, inventory and whatnot. She never understood how some people, like her lab mates, could weave mana like a spider weaves thread.
Stolen story; please report.
Honestly, she envied them. It was insanely difficult, but if done with enough precision and speed, they could outdo verbal spells. Imagine flicking your wrist in just the right way or just drawing a circle and then pulling together a fully completed circuit in less than 10 seconds. Even those that Eva had seen Rosen use were almost all essentially pen-on-surface, with maybe a little creature/kitten made of Rosen’s mana helping.
No matter, Eva told herself. Everyone interacts and learns grows into mana differently. If it was really bothering her, she could set aside a few months to learning how to stitch mana. Plus, the coven leader is an exception, a statistical outlier when it comes to spell circuits. She should never be counted. Rosen Georg, she mused. Eva shut down the research computer running DOORS XP and clocked out.
As she was leaving the building, her motor-brand bladr rang. Its ringtone was only slightly different than the norm, just a few different notes, but that told her all she needed to know. Speak of the devil. Her aunt was calling her.
She hurried to answer it before it finished chirping.
“YesYes, Hello ciotka.” Eva answered half on autopilot.
“Get to St. Joan’s. Now. I’ll explain later.” Her aunt answered her, voice withheld of emotion.
“Let me guess. Another fling rejected you.” Eva joked. This wasn’t the first time her aunt called her like this. The last few times, her hookups didn’t want the ‘unique’ Friends with Benefits relationship she was looking for.
“god dAMNIT EVA, THIS ISNT THE TIME FOR THIS.” Rosen’s pure, unfiltered rage made it’s way across the network, the usual dad humor attitude and teasing missing.
That instantly shut Eva up.
“St. Joan’s. Now. Within the hour.” Rosen barked dryly.
Eva was left with the sparce beeping of an ended call. She glanced at her bladr. 20 ‘till 11. This was going to be another long day, wasn’t it.
She cursed the stars in the sky as she started dashing madly down the streets, a tram just wasn’t going to come fast enough.
‘The least everyone could do is give me more than a week off…’ Eva groaned.
***
Eva got to the orphanage 5 minutes late. She rushed through the doors, greeting the sister who was on duty today, and dashed up the stairs.
In the corner of her eye, she saw Ke’er, the pink-haired félinat kid, playing around. Kids younger than her were following her around like baby ducklings, yet also dragging her around with them. Their tomfoolery got a small smile out of Eva. Even if they couldn’t find her parents, she was glad the kid was doing well.
“…And what do you suggest we do instead?” Rosen’s voice faded in as Eva made her way closer to the headmistress’ office.
“Anything but using civilians Madam Rosen!” An old voice cried. Eva quietly snuck in and sat next to Lou. Yes, she was here. A small creature size of a few weeks old kitten spawned from Rosen. It was light grey, full of vibrancy. Rosen’s little helper made of mana used this opportunity to sneak out and get pets from the two of them.
“They’re not just ‘civilians.’ If Chestnut trusts them, that’s good enough.” Rosen crossed her arms.
“Are you really going to trust that—”
“Just shut up already you bigoted hag. Bloodkin don’t want your blood. And trolls are anything but ‘simple barbarians.’ Now. Can we get on with the bomb threat?” Rosen picked up the little creature from the couch. Not even sad kitten eyes could save it. She sat the creature back on to her shoulder, where it reluctantly curled up against her neck, and quickly returned to mana.
“Bomb threat??” Eva jumped, unconsciously ready to use herself as a shield if needed. Lou had to hold her head down so that she wouldn’t jump out of her seat. Too many years as a lab meat shield takes its toll on a person.
“Lou, remind me to revise the state workplace policy when we’re finished. Clearly this isn’t enough.” She paused to glare daggers at the old lady, tossing a few photos to Eva and Lou. “We found this circuit on Gordon’s back during a checkup. I broke it, but you should still be able to tell what it is.“
The circuit’s colorlessness tore through the photo’s film. It wasn’t particularly clear, a line extended from the middle all around it, cutting through important words. From what they could make out, the inner ring had the characters expulse(?), or something with the prefix ex at least, until, and a purposefully scratched-out character. Probably meant to short it and keep it running indefinitely. The Outer ring only had one. Explode.
Eva and Lou had seen many circuits designed to harm people before, so the photos alone weren’t enough to phase them. It took them too long to realize what the circuit was attached to, and what that meant.
Once Rosen saw the abject horror set in, she tossed them a letter. Both the envelope and the paper itself were made from paper clippings of some kind. The envelope was made from scraps cut right through their headlines. The paper was made with only 3 sentences. “Repent.” “False Ones.” And “Pay the Price.”
“Many letters like this were sent to government organizations in this town. I just so happened to be here dealing with Gordon when this one was set off. Though as stupid as it may seem, only the first 7 organizations in the city’s “public service” Net List were targeted.” Rosen continued.
“Wait, she’s here?” Lou asked, perplexed.
Right as Eva was about to ask too, the boy walked in, wearing a sister’s habit. It was stained with an unknown substance that smelled.
“I swear to Christ, if I have to clean up one more puddle of puke…” He muttered, carrying a package of paperwork. “Charlie fainted again. Here’s the damn report.”
He suddenly saw the other two girls in the room. Eva almost snorted, and Lou, despite her usual reserved attitude, held in a bit of air. Oh god. They truly do share a single brain cell. Rosen didn’t interfere, leaving the situation to speak for itself.
“You— you—" Gordon’s face turned flush red, both from anger and embarrassment. He tried to swing an arm, but two wide bracelets around his wrists glowed, stopping both movement and mana.
“As you can see, she’s now completely harmless,” Rosen started again.
“Harmless? Do you really think that’s all that I am?? A &%!@*%#!—”
The cuffs flared red again, but the boy wouldn’t stop screaming profanities. The headmistress had to drag him out of the room.
“As I was saying, she’s completely harmless. I figure this is the easiest place to leave her is here, so you two can stop her if she tries to pull anything funny.” Rosen continued. Tired of having been interrupted for the 5th time. “As you can see, the letter had the same circuit burned on to it. We don’t know much about where this person will try to target next, so I’m ordering every free trained coven officer around here to keep a watch.”
“But…?” Eva knew they wouldn’t be having this conversation if that was the end of it.
“…but we don’t have nearly enough staff for that. Or won’t in any amount of good time. So, we’re asking the Leylet college guild to help.” Rosen tossed some car keys to Lou. “Lou, I need you to coordinate everybody. Take the black Motor General van. Eva, I need you to break as many of those circuits as possible.”