The strain in Cliff’s eyes warred with motivation to stand up and turn on a light. The sun was setting earlier and earlier these days, and the last bits of sunset streaming through the reading room’s little window were not enough to illuminate the tiny print on the encyclopedia in front of him. He blinked blurriness from his eyes, flexing his fingers as the data on the page filtered itself through his mind into his magic hand design. With a grunt, he shut the book, jotting a few quick notes on his already too-full pad. It was about time to call it a day, or he might risk missing dinner in the dorm’s dining hall.

He leaned back to stretch and his stomach let out a needy groan. Jenna had invited him to lunch off-campus, but he had too much to think about and plan. Instead of a coffee date, he’d holed himself up in the library all day, pausing only to take a short mid-afternoon nap when his focus had started to fray. Normally, he wouldn’t have had the attention span to spend so long researching, but at the moment he had multiple projects to bounce between, so he was somehow managing.

The catalogs, textbooks, and encyclopedias in front of him were arrayed in two messy piles. On his left were books that would help him in his PMT designs, and on his right, books for his engineering project. He looked over the spines, scanning the titles for a book to borrow. It was academy policy that each student could only have two books out at any given time, and he’d already checked out documentation for the manufacture of Magetool filaments. Before the past week, he’d never really considered how they actually make Magetool parts, but that was the operative question when it came making your own PMT nodes. He realized it was rather gruesome when he took a moment to think about it – ground up monster parts bound in a flexible, magic-conducting resin. It was the secret to most Magetools, duplicating monsters’ magic effects, and if he wanted to make his own, he had to understand how they worked.

He sighed to himself, tucking one book under his arm and throwing the rest on a cart to be re-filed by the librarian. It was a thin thing that concerned itself with the history of the martial node, but it was written by one of the military researchers behind the first prototypes, and so it had a compelling, informed voice.

The cold autumn air prickled his skin as he made his way back to the dorm, hands shoved in his pockets and an off-pitch note whistling between his teeth. A boy called out to him, someone in the engineering club, and he returned a friendly wave. More than two months had passed since he’d arrived on campus, and he could honestly say he’d gotten into the groove of things. Especially because he’d been given a solution to his PMT problem, he’d been feeling optimistic lately. Sure, there was still the occasional bump in the road – exams and disagreements with his team and a whole host of other things, but where he was now, he figured he could cope well enough.

His whistling came to a stop when he spotted one of the primary causes of his headaches looking more flustered than normal for her, a conflicted look on her face as she stood in front of the dorm. For a moment he thought about leaving her be and walking by, but he was in a good mood after a productive day, so his generosity got the better of him.

“Loria,” he called cautiously, “you doing alright?”

She whirled to him, her face rapidly morphing from surprise to annoyance to thoughtfulness in a span of seconds. “Cliff,” she finally said, her tone schooled steady, “I’m – busy, I guess.”

“You look it,” he said. Her eyebrows drew down, and he realized he should probably just let her be. “Well,” he said, “don’t let me distract you then.” With a nod, he turned to walk past her.

“Actually, Cliff,” she started hesitantly, “do you think you could help me with something?” He turned to look at her with wide eyes – that was about the last thing he’d expected her to say. Normally, she’d snap at any offer of help he’d try to give her, but now, she was asking for his help? “Only if you’re not busy,” she added, an almost-frightened expression on her face.

“I mean-” Cliff started, “Sure, I suppose. As long as it’s nothing too crazy.” He didn’t think Loria would be the type to trick him into busy-work, but then, she’d never asked him for help before, so what did he know?

She shook her head, waving a hand in front of her. “It shouldn’t be too bad, it’s just – yesterday, Templar Roose asked me if I could pick up a box of documents from the library for him. I think they have something to do with the next Hands-on. I lost track of time studying today, and I just realized how late it’s gotten. I haven’t eaten, so-”

“You won’t have time for dinner,” Cliff finished with a knowing nod.

“Exactly,” Loria said with a frown. “Do you think you could go pick up the documents for me?”

Cliff sighed, his stomach immediately demanding that he turn her down. It would mean he wouldn’t have time for dinner, but- “Sure. Just tell them that Roose sent for something, and the librarian should set me up, right?” He knew the feeling of losing yourself in something, and it was never a fun decision to pick between food and work. Honestly, he hadn’t been to town for a meal in a while, and missing dinner to do help her out was as good a chance as any to treat himself for the night – he’d regret the hangover in his morning classes the next day, but he’d never had a hangover he didn’t regret.

“Yeah,” she said, studying him with an odd look. “You sure it’s okay?”

“Sure, no problem at all. I’ll just grab the documents and bring them to Roose’s office.” He snapped his fingers, grabbing the book tucked under his arm. “If you could, give this to Thalos or Percy – maybe just drop it at my room if you can’t find them.”

“Ah – right,” she said, glancing down at the book. Her eyes widened and she looked up. “Wait, this is a – you didn’t just come from the library, did you?”

Cliff waved a hand dismissively. “It’s a nice walk.” He turned to leave, but paused when a thought occurred to him. “Don’t worry, I won’t rummage through the box – I learned that lesson on the day we met, right?” He smirked, chuckling to himself as he recalled his and Loria’s first meeting. It was fitting that their first interaction had been an argument over something as trivial as whether to open the crates or wait for someone to come deal with them. It had turned out to be downright prophetic.

“Right,” she said softly, still giving him that odd look. She looked between him and the book he’d given her, a frown on her face.

“Go on then, enjoy your dinner. I’ll get your documents to Roose, don’t you worry about it.” Restarting his tuneless whistle, Cliff turned to make his way back to the library, Loria still giving him that confused look as he walked off, mentally planning an evening in town.

***

“So what do you think?” Paolo asked, “Or – is your Gift giving you anything?”

“It’s-” Cliff started, dragging his finger across the massive sheet of paper on the drafting desk, “-I’ve never seen anything – or, well, it’s all pretty abstract, so it’s hard to describe.”

“Out with it, Cliff,” Paolo said impatiently.

Cliff frowned, pausing his waffling to decide how to best put it. “Well, something feels – off about the design, I reckon.”

“Off?” his advisor pressed.

“Off. I’m not sure what it is. I can’t exactly see any problems with it, and, well, if everything functions like you’ve explained it, it should work,” he continued, scratching his head.

“But…?”

“But something doesn’t feel exactly right about everything. I don’t know – it’s probably nothing.” Cliff shrugged, glancing at the artifact they were trying to emulate. “It’s a lot to copy such a small piece of rock.”

“The joy of working with Gift-produced artifacts,” Paolo said with forced enthusiasm. The magepriest had recently been approved for workshop space, as his designs had hit the point where theoretical work could only take him so far. They had to actually build the thing, and that was no small task. The workshop space they’d been given was probably four times the size of Cliff and Thalos’s dorm room – a hefty amount of space, but nearly half of it would be taken up by the Magetool produced from Paolo’s design. “If you don’t see any flaws, then I guess we should get to work building it.”

“Right,” Cliff said halfheartedly. He was excited about the prospect of building something so intricate and novel, but he’d never had his Gift act like this. It was a disturbing feeling – was there a limit to the insight it could provide?

“Chin up, Cliff,” Paolo said, slapping him lightly on the shoulder, “I didn’t expect you to give me all the answers, and you’ve already spotted a couple of redundancies that will save us a good amount of work.” The magepriest pointed at one corner of the design. “I was thinking we should start with building the absorber.”

Cliff nodded absently, the oddness of the schematic still tumbling around his brain. “Sounds good, but – what if it doesn’t work?”

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Paolo sighed, looking at him with a kind smile. “If it doesn’t work, we fix it until it does – that’s research, Cliff.”

Cliff shook his head. “No, I mean – what if it never works.” Paolo took on a pained expression, and Cliff immediately tried to caveat his words. “I’m not saying it won’t, but, looking at the schematic…” He trailed off. There was a lot going on in this design, including a mostly-untested method of preventing the flow of magic in an area.

“It has to work,” Paolo replied, his tone dark, “If it doesn’t – I-” He forced out a breath, starting again with a bit more levity. “Well, I’ve been working on this for a long time, and I intend to see it to its completion – even if you graduate before I get it working-” He paused, wincing. “No, I should be done before then, at least with the prototype. I’ve come this far, after all.”

“I’m sorry, Brother Paolo – I didn’t mean to question your progress. I’m just having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around everything.” He scratched at his head.

“Right, well-” Paolo replied, working some energy back into his voice, “come on – that’s enough nay-saying. Let’s get to work.”

***

“Say, Paolo,” Cliff said, wiping at the sweat on his brow and rolling back from his knees onto his rear, “What’s the next step after we build a functional prototype?”

“Cliff, we’ve been bolting together metal for thirty minutes, and you’re already thinking about what happens when we finish?” the magepriest replied in a dry tone without looking up from his work.

Cliff’s knees ached from kneeling on the ground, and he made a mental note to bring something to cushion the floor next time. “It’s nothing like that. My mind wanders while I work and I was still thinking about our earlier conversation, but – this could be a big deal, right?”

Paolo glanced at him with a wry smile. “That’s why the Hierophant commissioned the research.”

“I’m serious,” Cliff said, leaning forward and scooping his wrench off the ground. He grabbed a bolt as thick as his thumb, threading it through a hole and checking the two sheets of metal against the schematic until they matched. “I mean, I’m taking history classes, and everything from a long time ago was all doom and gloom. Magic density – that was humanity’s biggest problem for, well, hundreds of years. It still is, kind of. We can’t build a city where the magic levels are too high, or people start getting sick, and babies start being born dead, and – well, you know. If this-” He slapped his wrench on what was slowly turning into the beginnings of a metal frame, a loud clang echoing in the mostly-empty workshop. “-can fix that problem, wouldn’t it change everything?”

“Careful where you swing that wrench! Don’t ding the frame,” Paolo scolded, looking over at him. “To answer your question – maybe.” He sighed. “Say we build an effective prototype – it works, and we tweak the design until its compact and easily producible. Like the first Magetools, it spreads around the world quickly, and governments, the Church, the military – everyone starts to use it. Roads between cities are suddenly safely traveled unguarded, we can settle formerly hostile areas, and humanity, once and for all, conquers the wilderness.”

Cliff inhaled sharply. “Then-”

“That’s if everything goes perfectly ideally – honestly, Cliff, you’re going to give me whiplash from how quickly your tune has changed. Before it was ‘what if this never works,’ and now it’s ‘what if we revolutionize civilization’.” He shook his head. “Here’s a lesson – for engineering, and research, and life, really. Don’t let yourself stray to either extreme. What I just described? That’s the best possible outcome, if everything goes perfectly with no problems along the way. On the other end – a situation I don’t even want to think about – we make no progress and my funding is cut, or worse.” He paused a moment, a frown on his face, and Cliff was slightly curious at what worse possibilities were running through his advisor’s head. Eventually, he continued. “Optimistically, we end up somewhere between those two – a minor success would still be massive in my eyes.” He turned to glare at Cliff. “But there you’ve got me talking far in the future. Before we can even consider that, we should probably have something more than a sketch on a paper and a pile of metal that would look more at home in a scrap yard than a research symposium.”

Cliff grinned. “Good point,” he said, turning back to his work, “I’ll save my dreams of a revolutionized civilization for after I’ve finished my share of the nuts and bolts.”

***

“You are tasked with repairing a footbridge two days south of Clearspring that is used in military training exercises, annual surveying expeditions, and as an occasional path to the western reaches of Marifond. Additionally, you are tasked with harvesting valuable plants and monster materials.,” Loria read from the first page of the packet. The thick sheaf of paper had greeted team B when they arrived in the classroom, a summary of their second Hands-on training.

“Bridge repair?” Nym said, scrunching her nose. The idea didn’t seem to excite her.

“And foraging,” Loria confirmed, looking thoughtful, “there’s more details below, but that’s the gist of it.”

Cliff drew his lips to the side, a few questions immediately coming to mind. “How are we supposed to haul the wood to repair the bridge? That’s some heavy lifting, unless they expect us to cut and lumber wood right there. And the materials we forage – if it’s two days there and two days back, there’s no way we’ll be able to carry them on our backs.”

“One of the included papers is a requisition order for a class-D trail trolley and an accompanying trailer,” Loria said as she flipped through the packet. She paused to look around the team. “Can anyone else drive one?” The way she said it implied she could, Cliff noted.

“I’ve spent dozens of hours in the saddle of a tractor – a trail trolley should be mostly the same,” Cliff replied, “but – class-D, whats that mean?”

“It will seat two, and it’s not rated for long-term expeditions,” Loria said with a frown, “which means you’ll have to swap the Prime stones throughout the trip.” She raised an eyebrow. “I assume that won’t be a problem?”

Cliff clicked his tongue. “Give me enough time and I could take her apart and put her back together,” he said with a smirk. “We’ll swap shifts riding and walking, then?”

“We could also ride in the trailer,” Nym added.

“True, but I’d like someone on their feet at all times, just in case we need a quick reaction,” Loria said with a thoughtful frown. After a moment, she shook her head. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though – first things first, let’s divide the preparation tasks up.” She spread the packet in front of her, picking out sheets and handing them to each member. She hesitated when she came to the requisition order for the trail trolley. “Cliff, Thalos, which one of you wants to take charge of the trolley? Technically it’s probably within the quartermaster’s jurisdiction, but you can’t drive, can you Thalos?”

Cliff’s roommate shook his head. “My grandfather never taught me, I’m afraid.”

“Plus, he’s got to deal with rations and the wood for the bridge – I’ll take it,” Cliff said, taking the paper from Loria. After setting it in his pile he slapped a hand on Thalos’s back. “Don’t worry, buddy, I’ll give you a few pointers on how to drive while we’re out there.”

“Cliff,” Loria said in a warning tone, “We’re supposed to treat this like a mission, remember, not a camping trip.”

“We’re going to be out there for days, Loria – everyone has a little fun on the job.” He gave her his most innocent grin. “Plus, it’ll be educational.” Their first Hands-on had been a day-trip, but a week had been blocked out of their schedule for the second. Roose had explained that the missions’ lengths would vary, and theirs would involve at least four-days of transit, plus however long it took to repair the bridge. All-told, it would be five or six days total. It wasn’t unheard of for students at the academy to take time off from classes for activities like this. The cadets had monthly field training, and he’d heard that the seminarians had an annual month-long pilgrimage later in the year.

“I’d also like to learn, if you don’t mind,” Nym added with an apologetic look towards Loria.

Loria sighed. “As long as it doesn’t conflict with the mission – I suppose now is as good a time as any to learn. But again – let’s save the plans for when we’ve got everything prepared.”

“As you say, oh gracious commander,” Cliff replied, earning him a glare from Loria. “Speaking of – do you need help with calculating the materials for the bridge, Thalos? I’ve done a bit of carpentry, on the farm, and it can be a bit much if you’re not familiar with the different dimensions of planks.”

Thalos scanned one of the papers in front of him before shaking his head. “I think I’ll be fine – the schematics are pretty specific – though-” He frowned. “-it honestly looks like we’ll be rebuilding more than repairing if this is accurate.” He shook his head and looked at Cliff. “Besides, don’t you have your own prep work to deal with?”

Cliff made a noncommittal noise. “Honestly, not much compared to the rest of you all. I’ve got to submit our PMT layouts, but-” He glanced at Loria. “-well, we’ll only be doing a few tweaks for everyone else, and there’s not much to be said about mine until I’ve actually figured the damn thing out.”

“How’s that coming, by the way?” Nym asked. He’d told them about his solution to the PMT problem, of course, but not much beyond that.

“I’ve got a few things cooking up, but I still need approval and to actually build the nodes.” He frowned to himself. “Come to think of it – I suppose our deadline applies to my PMT work as well.” The Hands-on was scheduled to take place in two weeks, and half a week before that, they had to submit all of the pre-departure forms and plans.

Thalos gave him a concerned look. “Will you be able to make it?”

“Your concern both charms and wounds me,” Cliff replied with an easygoing grin. “I should be fine, as long as Roose doesn’t take too long to process my requests.” Truth be told, he didn’t have access to all that many materials, so he couldn’t get that creative with his PMT. In the future, it would be possible, but for now he was limited.

“Templar Roose aside, make sure you brief us on your PMT before we submit everything – I’ll have to take it into account when I think up our battle plans,” Loria said.

“It’s Cliff you’re talking about here,” Thalos said, “he’ll be bragging about what he makes long before we leave.”

Cliff opened his mouth to protest, but shut it with a click when he realized that Thalos was absolutely right.

“If that’s the case, we’ll start there,” Loria said with a nod, “I’ll work with Nym to parse through the maps and monster list they’ve given us. Two weeks isn’t a long time, especially when you include the spars we’ve got coming up – let’s get this done quickly and efficiently so we can have a better showing than the first Hands-on.”