I tried to put aside the implications of mutterings as I gave the room another once over. The room held eight beds, seven unmade. Seven men who had not returned from mine.

I walked over to a small chest of drawers. A set of them sat between each bed. Holding my breath, I ran my finger along the top of one chest of drawers leaving a line in the fine layer of dust. Just how long had this place sat empty?

I slipped my hand under the top drawer’s handle, but I didn’t pull. If I could believe what Dorian had said, and I had no reason not to, the contents were mine. However, they were dead. To take from the deceased… I released the handle. No need to kick up more of the dust for my lungs to handle. Plus, I could use more light. With windows shuttered, closing the door eliminated the last bit of natural light. One light stone barely cut it. I needed to learn how these light stones worked. The nights here would be dark, and if I ever found myself alone in the mine, I would want to know how my only source of light worked. Also, most buildings here kept their shutters closed even during the day. There had to be a reason. Hopefully, it was the cold night air and not monsters…

I walked to an unlit stone in the center the of a side wall. Like the other, its design most resembled a sconce. A wooden ring extended from the wall suspending a milky-white stone in the air. Its surface, while irregular, lacked the angularity I would have attributed to a crystal. The bumps marring the smooth surface seemed more for a lack of finishing than the material’s inherent properties. It also told me nothing about how to light it.

I gave it a soft touch. Nothing. I leaned in to examine it. No obvious switch. It sat on stone disc that perfectly matched the stone’s based. I ran my fingers around its entire surface. Again, nothing. I tried to lift the stone off the ring, but I met with no small amount resistance. It didn’t budge when I applied the strength that I would have used to pick up a full mug of coffee. Only with using two hands did I even manage to move it. Even then, I pried up just a small edge before it snapped back to sconce with a dull thump.

Magnets? But this had to be wood. It had the grains and natural color of…well unfinished wood. Yet, when I tried giving the sconce a light pull, it acted like iron for all the give it had. Maybe other people could break it with their inhuman strength, but I probably could have hung from it without doing a thing. Not that I would dare test it. I already carried too much debt.

Instead, I opted to slip my fingers along the bottom of the sconce trying to find an on switch or a release mechanism. Radiating from the center, I found subtle grooves too regular to be natural. Etchings?

My hand had already made it to my chest pocket to grab my penlight before I remembered that I had lost it. Old habits died hard. I bent down to get a better look, but without light, the I lost the details in the shadows. Pressing on them did nothing as well.

“How the heck does this work?” I whispered.

Was touching it the right way? Dorian hadn’t even put his hand on it. I stepped backward and mimicked the gesture. Nothing.

“Light. Illuminate. On. Turn on, dammit!” I growled when my words did nothing. Dorian made it look so easy. I would not be beaten by a damn light.

I squinted at the dark stone. The Vísir had asked if I had charged it, and Dorian thought the practice would help me. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe lighting the stone required a sort of energy transfer.

I touched the crystal, putting a slight pressure on the smooth surface. As expected, no light. I closed my eyes, willing something to flow into the crystal. Again nothing. I repeated my efforts on each edge without success. Each failure increased my frustration. I huffed in frustration as I pulled my hand away only to freeze. My fingers, less than an inch from the stone, tingled as when I had worked with the potion. But more importantly, the stone had released a flash of light.

I stared at it in disbelief. Had that actually happened? I leaned in close, willing myself to be able see even the tiniest trace of light inside the milky-white stone. Even when I shaded the stone, I found nothing. It had come and gone in less than a blink of an eye, but I hadn’t imagined it, not when my finger tingled just like using the potion.

I put my fingers back onto the smooth, crystalline surface. I stared, waiting for the light to return. It provided only disappointment.

Again?

My head slumped, and I didn’t try to hold back a long sigh. However, another burst of light brought my head upward. My breath caught, and then the fledging light flickered and dimmed.

“No no no no,” I gasped. and as if hearing me, the light’s intensity and, with it, the tingling in my fingertips flared.

I took a long deep breath to center my thoughts, and, of course, the stone responded. A pale glow began to emanate from the stone. As soon as I held my breath, the stone began to dim. I took another long breath, taking in the growth in the intensity of the light and tingling in my fingers. I continued until it hit the same brightness of the other stone. Then, I removed my hand, and it stayed lit.

I couldn’t keep the smile from lips. I had figured it out. Breathing played some role in what had to be a form of energy transfer. Then it all fell into place, and I mentally kicked myself for not seeing it earlier. Even disregarding hindsight, it should have been obvious. I had only been able to move the cart when I had fallen into a pattern of a rhythmic, deep breathing.

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Of course, I had to be missing details. What exactly did breathing do? Was it pulling in energy? Aether? Was it necessary? Dorian lit the stone with just a wave of his hand. I hadn’t needed a special breathing pattern to do whatever I did to that healing potion.

I let out a sad laugh. Potions. Not medicine. What a world to be in. I was returning the dark ages both in terms of my tools and my understanding. I needed information. Even on my own, I could better. This may be a new world, but I didn’t enter it truly empty-handed. I had my knowledge, and more than just modern medicine. I had what underpinned it. Science. Even if I didn’t have any tools, I had the methods, and they were powerful when used correctly. I just needed to start with some assumptions and test them with experiments; the first, was Aether.

It had to be important, if not the key, if only because why else would they come out here to mine those crystals. As best as I could tell, it came in varying intensities or densities. I would postulate that Aether allowed my body to surpass it norms. The two together would explain why deep breathing worked far better when pulling the cart inside the mine as opposed to outside it. It would also explain why I developed Aether toxicity. In that cavern with untouched crystals, I was essentially hyperventilating air with a higher concentration of a toxin. Not my finest hour.

Though, Aether toxicity was a known phenomenon, which meant my teammates let this happen—or possibly encouraged it. That time remains muddled, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Verndari somehow encouraged this outcome. Dorian already implied as much. More enemies for just existing.

Maybe someday I will catch a break.

I returned to my musing. For my next question, did Aether affect non-living things? I favored yes, and probably in many different ways. However, right now, I had only one way to vary Aether concentration.

I walked over to where I left the rag containing my spittle. If Dorian was correct, whatever I coughed up should still contain Aether and likely high-density Aether based on where I inhaled it. So if Aether can work as a power source…

I brought the rag to an unlit stone, and I couldn’t help but smile as the stone lit up. I tried different parts of the stone. It didn’t matter the direction, the light intensity varied solely on the distance from the stone. The range was quite short, about one inch, except for one the direction. For some reasons, when I positioned my Aether source at the base, the light became much brighter even with keeping the distances the same. Was that from the etchings or something else in the design?

Regardless, it supported Aether’s use as a power source—just not a good one. Even when touching, the light never came to close to the intensities I generated. That meant I could generate higher concentrations of Aether or another mechanism existed. The former seemed wrong. If I could generate highly concentrated Aether, why would it be toxic?

I could come up with some convoluted mechanism, but the simplest answer was that another way existed. Dorian had wanted me to practice on the light. With a little more practice, perhaps I could figure it out.

I put my hand on the unlit stone. Could I do this without a large breath? After a few normal breaths, the answer came back as a resounding no. The hint of that telltale tingling suggested I was close, but I couldn’t turn on the light. I slowly increased the depth of my breathing. I kept the rate slow, but I was becoming more lightheaded which each breath. Hyperventilation, not toxicity. Complete conjecture, but it gave me solace. Nonetheless, I was close. I just had to—

The light flickered on. I focused on the tingling in my fingers. As paresthesias went, it wasn’t unpleasant. I slowed my breath, and the light and tingling faded. Definitely a link, but what was the mechanism?

The lungs initiated the process. I sucked in the deep breath, and as expected the light and tingling ramped up. However, this time I held my breath. As the seconds ticked by, again began faded, but I held on until my lungs started to burn—and tingle?

I exhaled sharply in surprise, and…something surged down my arm. When it hit my fingers, the stone’s brightness flared. I yanked my hand back, and the light stuttered and dimmed. I stared at my fingers. I shifted my gaze between my fingers and stone as the tingling and light faded to nothing.

What the hell was that?

I sucked in another breath and tried again. Again I detected that tingling in my lungs. The abnormal sensation in my fingers had distracted me. This time I held my breath and examined the sensation in my lungs. I could not describe it, but I had this sensation that something was trying to flow from my lungs to other parts of my body. It wasn’t just the arm, thought it called the most, especially when I touched the stone.

I turned my attention to that sensation in my lungs. It was faint, but more noticeable now that I didn’t let my brain filtered it out. I held my breath and urged on that whatever that was that wanted to move down my arm. My scrunched my face so hard in concentration that my head began to ache, but like a dam breaking, the resistance vanished. A strange energy surged down my arm. The light stone flared to life.

I kept pushing, filling the stone with more of the fuel it needed. Whatever I was doing was working far better than hyperventilating, but it took a toll. I blinked, batting away fatigue. As I continued, my lungs started to burn. My brain begged for air. I sucked in a breath as my vision started to tunnel.

The fatigue lifted immediately, but it didn’t completely fade for another breaths. After a few more breaths, the shaking in my hands also died down. However, the memory of that air hunger remained. Except, it had to be more than air hunger. I had only held my breath for seconds. Seconds! I should have been able to hold my breath far longer. Lighting that stone did something.

Dramatically increased consumption of oxygen? Maybe. But why not CO2 or even nitrogen? I was dealing with a new biology. Just how much off my medical knowledge was still valid?

I shook away that dark thought and pulled back my hand to better admire my work. Getting bogged down in hypothetical was useless. I had succeeded. The stone glowed with a warm light.

My eyes widened. How could I have not noticed?

I touched the crystal again to confirm. Almost no heat. It was better than an LED bulb. The efficiency….

I shook my head and moved to the last stone. New challenge: duplicate the result while breathing normally. I touched the dull stone. I focused on the—I’ll call it energy—swirling in my lungs. It was there, but not quite tangible. I pushed, hitting the familiar, though decreased, resistance. Energy flowed down my arm, illuminating the light—until I lost concentration.