I intently stare at my prepared kindling stacked in a tent shape, the stick refusing to be lit.
Why the hell isn’t this on fire?
Hell, it even melted—that doesn’t happen; wood always catches on fire before you reach its melting point. Unless you heat wood in a vacuum,
.
.
.
Wait for a second; I always haven’t been able to confirm what I’ve been drifting through. I just know that it is a fluid of some kind, whether gas or liquid, that conforms to my shape.
Most likely a gas, considering no liquid has been flowing into my throat. A gas that doesn’t have any dust or particulates and doesn’t even interact with anything, but somehow also transmits sounds.
The properties of what I float in are a contradictory mess and are flat-out impossible. I almost scream in frustration, but I stop with a deep breath because this is the reality that I live in.
Either way, whatever I drift through definitely isn’t oxygen; I guess I just assumed that since I could breathe it in, it was oxygen.
With a groan, I pull up Stevens’ voice recording app; it’s not like I need more holes in my expectations theory. This outcome was entirely unexpected, and as more of these things happen, it becomes less effective.
But what am I going to do now? I can’t exactly laser it; I would immediately melt the bottom off. destroying the whole point of a steam engine.
Maybe I can drop melted metal in there to get it boiling?
No, that is consistent work that would take me a lot of time. The whole point of the steam engine is that it makes hard work easier. What would be the point of me doing hard work constantly in order to run a machine that does hard work constantly for me?
I could do induction heating if I managed to make a steam generator, because, well, my hand-crank generators can’t make enough energy per second to boil things.
I would need a battery to store the energy required to boil something with my hand cranks.
But, and this is a big but, the only ones I have are attached to things. And are far too unique to duplicate.
And I can’t exactly cut a chemical battery in half to get two functioning ones.
It’s a catch-22; I need steam energy to make steam. AUGH I clutch my head, almost pulling at my hair, before patting it down smoothly. Nobody messes with my luscious hair, not even myself
.
But ok, in order to make this happen, I’m going to need impossible things, so let's start with the first option: magic!
Ah, my eyes sparkle with the idea that my go-to problem solver nowadays is magic. It just makes the nerd in my heart shine bright like a diamond.
I know that pulling in anger increases the heat of my surroundings, so it’s quite obvious that would help in creating a magical technique to heat something enough that it’s hot but not so much that it melts. Like what would happen if I were to pull out my laser.
But first I should try using my expectations theory. Although my idea is that the price of magic is essentially adding emotions, And that by knowing the emotion of the magic you want to do, you can more effectively create techniques you couldn’t before is correct. It is also quite new and janky, and so far it just does random magical shite when I start pulling in emotions. And I have to constantly think about them while doing so.
I’ll record the experiments via logs. So I don’t miss anything.
Hand Signal Experiment Logs
Log 1
“For this experiment, I will first make a flat hand and do nothing after. Then, while making a twirling motion with my hand, I will fire the laser from my braces, hopefully allowing me to expect my own portable flamethrower.
"*No sounds*"
“The first run-through has achieved no results; I will repeat it twice more for scientific rigor.”
"*Nothing*"
"*Zip"
"*Nada*"
“Start Log. I have achieved no results with this experiment. Next time, I will use gestures that have more meaning to them to increase the weight of my expectations. End Log
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Log 2
“For this experiment, I have looked up several hand gestures that mean fire, one from ASL, one from an anime, and another signal that I can form with my hand that used to be used to warn others about fire’s presence in ancient times. I will start with that one first because it has the most history behind it, then go down in age. Hopefully, by expecting fire, I can conjure magical fire that doesn’t need oxygen.
“Sounds of rubbing fingers commence.”
“First run-through of three attempts has failed. Moving onto the next one.”
“*Sounds of clumsily tapped fingers*”
“ASL has failed as well, going onto anime hand signals.”
“*Sounds of frustrated fingers rubbing and wooshes of air blowing through the opening.
“*deep breaths in* Anime hand signs have failed as well.”
Log 3
“Start Log. Hand signal attempts have failed even after many tries and different variations. Due to the same exact results being given no matter what is changed, I am terminating the hand signal portion. Reasons for failure might be one: I just don’t expect to be able to conjure fire, and even if I did, nothing would happen because there is no fuel or oxygen. I might essentially be trying to make a fire while in the depths of the sea. In the next series of experiments, I will try just thinking angry thoughts. End Log”
Welding fingers experiment
Log 1
“Start Log. I can’t go as big as trying to conjure fire, especially if I’m not floating in oxygen, so I’m going a bit more humble; I’m just going to try to make my hands really hot. Because the thing is using a laser for my welding and melting of iron, it's a bit inaccurate, especially with how unwieldy and large it is. It’s like pulling out a minigun to shoot flies! What I’m going to do is think of all the things that make me angry while focusing on my hands, and then I’ll grab some iron dust and sculpt it into a bowl! Like all my former pottery classes.
“Some shuffling fabric noises as the sleeves are pulled back and I ready myself and a sizzling sound is heard.”
“AHH!”
My yelp echoes into the astral. The molten metal in my hands slips off as I shake my hands in a panic, flinging the metal everywhere. It barely touches my skin before sliding off as the skin in my hands melts, until the burnt skin cells form into a soap-like substance that gets it off my hands.
I frantically initiate a wind wave, throwing all the particulates off me. A deafening silence reigns through the room, and as I heave air out of my lungs, I want to throw up, but there’s nothing in there, so I just spew out stomach acid into the experiment room. It floats in the astral.
I then slowly, gingerly float over to the steam tank that I did all of this for and promptly use it like a sink.
I stare at my hands below the water and sigh.
“I’m not getting a good night's sleep today, am I?" dejection and failure tainting my voice.
a dozen or so nights later.
I look at the still water of the steam tank; that was the whole purpose of this. My hands are covered in bandages formed out of strips of fabric tied tightly into a knot. And my eyes are filled with fear.
I was lucky that I had magic; without the wind wave, I most likely would have had horrific burns as the iron stuck to my face and kept burning it, maybe even nerve damage.
But I don’t exactly feel grateful for such a humiliating failure. How the hell did I think that melting metal in my hands would turn out alright?
And even if I did have magic, if the metal had been colder instead of being hot enough to slip off my hand, it would have melted onto my skin, forcing my hands to touch it and most likely resulting in 3rd-degree burns.
Without medical attention, my hands would have been burned enough to be of no use, crippling me and sinking my hopes of getting out of here.
At least I found out that invoking green magics like growth and healing can speed up recovery, but I’ve still made a massive blunder.
But I have to move forward, so here I stand, in front of the goal I was recklessly running towards. And as I try to muster the effort to do another experiment, I can’t do it.
I kick my way to the recreation room, my scalded hands too sensitive to use the handles, and I yell for Stevens to put on some music so I can do something other than stare at what I should be doing.
The next night
Again in front of the tank, I peel off the bandages, the fabric made sticky by the fluids the burns produced. My hands are covered in blisters and blackened by the flames. The blackness is covered in cracks; I can’t bear to look at it. My hands look like a burnt piece of meat, useless, a scrap to be thrown in the trash.
I invoke the emotion of healing, bringing to mind days of rest and diligent work done to fix mistakes, but I can’t do it for long before the images break. I can’t think of healing for too long when I’m like this.
I sigh, my voice filled with my stress and lack of energy, my hands looking just a bit better. I have to keep doing it; I can’t draw anything when my hands can’t grip a pen without pain. And what else can I do when I can’t even read anymore?
So I dunk my hands into the cool water of the tank and wrap new bandages formed from colorful strips torn from my clothes. Wincing as the cloth digs into my skin. Before drifting into another corner to do nothing at all.
1 night later
I float with my elbows hanging onto the edge of the tank as I try to plan out my day. I decide that I’ll do my next experiment after I try a new emotion to heal my hands.
But I just don’t. My mind is screaming at me to work, but I just don’t. Activity after activity was thrown into the path of my work.
Many nights later
I stare at the tank; my hands are healed but my eyes are still ragged, and I start my next log because I have to, no matter how hard it is. So I forced myself to come here because I had nothing else to do before this.
Experiment Not-so-hot hands
Log 1
“I still need to be able to direct the heat, but I can’t touch the metal to guide it, so my next idea is this. Essentially, pretend my hands are ovens that direct heated beams. Because my hands getting really hot wasn’t what hurt me; it was the molten metal. So if I can expect myself to generate heat from my hands due to my emotions, I can also expect it to radiate out.”
“*Sounds of some panicked breaths before a long, deep one, and then swimming towards the microphone*”
“First run through Partial success. My anger did heat up my surroundings, but it wasn’t directed and it wasn’t hot enough. Next time I will imagine pushing the heat out of my hands.”
“*One deep breath and then a big grunt as air is forced out of Tara’s lungs*”
“This trial has greater success. The push did have some effect; I managed to heat up my front half only. But there was no change in temperature, so I will attempt the technique again.
“One deep breath and one deep breath out.”
“Start Log. With greater mental effort, I was able to confine the heat to one spot, but it wasn’t enough; the heat wasn’t high enough. I was pretty much just giving the water a day in the sauna. I would go catatonic long before I would boil the water. End Log”
Log 2
“My idea this time is essentially, instead of blocking off the heat, why don’t I concentrate it? Where does the heat go when I block it off? It should be somewhere, and if the heat is getting stuffed into a smaller place, it gets hotter. So if I keep this idea in mind while summoning anger, I might be able to summon a heat ray!
“Sounds of grunting as if there were an intense workout.”
“I record this log with a smile; it worked! I managed to get the heat to reach half of my body immediately, based on my experience from the earlier exercise, and the heat was concentrated. I need to get the heat into a smaller place so I don’t ruin everything in my surroundings when I make steam, but I should be able to do that.”
“The same sounds as before are heard, but this time there’s a sizzle.”
“Hghghg I managed to succeed in my idea; I struggled to narrow the heat enough so that it only heated up the tanker, and I did. But the thing is that any beam narrow enough to only hit it is also hot enough to either melt or ruin it on contact! I’m going to try to essentially see what is the biggest radius of heat possible.”
A long while later
“Aughh! *deep breath out* Alright, so it seems that in order for it to be hot enough to boil but not hot enough to melt and not be so large that I ruin everything around me, I have to be right next to the goddamn tank. If I constantly float next to a hot metal tank, I’m going to be constantly scalded! And I can’t tie myself down because anything soft will burn away, and anything hard enough will also scald me!
“Start Log. While this method is technically able to carry out the task, it is so inconvenient and cumbersome that I will not be moving forward with further experiments on it. It takes mental power to concentrate the laser and lots of time to bring the anger to mind and invoke it. All while being horribly inefficient. I will be moving forward with another experiment, this time using expectation methods to increase efficiency and speed of use. End Log”
Log 3
Many nights later
I float off to the side of my base, and the strange contraption of my steam engine melts to the side of the experiment room. This is it, my final attempt.
I start off by scratching my left arm with my now-ruined nails and then bringing in my anger, putting in my mind the damage that’s been done to me out of sheer fucking chance.
And I do that again 3 more times, and on the 4th, I scratch my arm, and as the pain sparks to life, so does the anger, without me having to bring it to life myself.
I make a crooked smile at my success; after many experiments, I’ve found that pain is the best starter for anger invocation.
My eyes bloodshot I examine the domain of anger around me and push it out with my hands in a gesture like someone measuring the heat of a stove.
And as I do so, heat bursts from my hand and impacts the iron casing of my steam engine. My smile grows wider as the water bubbles and roils, releasing steam that spins a crude fan that itself spins a wheel attached to a four-jointed mechanism that pushes a block of steel made smooth through friction through a tube that crushes dozens of nails at once into pieces and then into a coarse powder.
And I cackled at my messy harm, and deranged eyes pointed up as my hands caressed the results of my hard labor.