By this time, everyone was hushed, listening quietly with wide eyes. Joe nodded and continued.

“Any questions?”

Allanar seemed the most skeptical, “That seems… very unlikely! I know you have helped me much in my becoming a mist mage, but…” he finished by shaking his head.

Joe nodded and continued, “I’m certain that it seems very strange, but we have proof of this that it is true. We have even seen it, if a bit poorly. But they are too small for our eyes to see without some machines and there is little I can do to prove such a thing. If I had electricity, I might be able to at least possibly show that water is made of smaller particles, but such a thing is very… difficult.”

“Lightning? You know lightning as well?” the Matriarch ask with some curiosity.

Joe nodded, “To an extent. My people probably know electricity the best of all the energy simply because we use it in everything.”

“Then how would you use it to prove water is … several particles, as you say?”

Joe nodded, “Well, there is a reaction if electricity is run through water. Electricity is the movement of a part of these particles. One nature of these particles is that these particles have poles… a portion of the atom is positively charged and a portion is negatively charged. Electricity is the movement of the negatively charged particles from atom to atom as it flows to equalize the charge. We name these charges positive and negative. Positive and negative attract each other, while the same charge repels itself. You may know of lodestones? These exhibit this behavior, which we call magnetism.

"Therefore, if one were to increase a specific charge in one location, a great enough charge… gathering of that specific charge will draw in its opposite. That is the lightning bolt that one sees when it flows from the earth to the sky. The earth becomes highly charged. The sky also becomes very charged by the opposite charge. When the difference is great enough, there is connection made and the sky sends a stream down just as the earth sends one up, attempting to connect with one another much like lodestones are drawn to one another. When the two connect, the charge is equalized and there is a great flash in the sky. This is the lightning bolt that we see.”

The Matriarch sat frozen, thoughts whirling, obviously deep in meditation and Joe waited patiently. The others at the table did as well, and it took her a few moments before she reacted, looking to Joe.

“I… I do not … some of what you say… I do not know!”

Joe raised an eyebrow, “Are you a lightning mage?”

The Matriarch nodded, “Yes, but I do not see … I cannot see your claim.”

Joe nodded, “Do you feel there is… two things drawn to one another.”

The Matriarch nodded slowly, “Possibly?”

Joe smiled, pulling out two small metal objects on the table. He set them carefully, raising them so the stuck up in the air quite close to one another but not touching. He also tried to make sure that they were held in place by a decent insulator, although Joe did struggle with that a bit. He finally grimaced, giving up on finding anything decent and simply turned to the Matriarch.

“Now, attempt to place only one of these in to this fork here. Place the other in this knife here. Do not allow them to mix. Force only one into each and grow them as much as you can.”

The Matriarch looked to Joe a bit before nodding, focusing intensely on the knife and fork. Joe, for his part, grinned excitedly. Lightning magic! Hah! That’s… ok… this … It’s time to open up some mage classes, I think!

The Matriarch continued for a bit then jumped in surprise when a small pop of arcing electricity equalized the charges between the knife and fork. The Matriarch began breathing heavily, even as her eyes became unfocused, staring into the distance. Allanar had his eyes open a bit wide, curious, but uncertain. Gwenvair, however, seemed both quite shocked and incredibly excited. Joe smiled, again waiting for the Matriarch. This time, she didn’t take as long.

“I did not cause that bolt!”

Joe laughed, “You did. You simply charged the tableware differently and natural physics did the rest. If you are able to create enough of a charge here on the ground, you could get a bolt of lightning to strike down from the sky. It would… require a lot of power, but… you could.”

She was smiling, quite excitedly and began to ask Joe quite a bit about magnetism and electricity. The conversation covered basic middle school knowledge of electricity and soon came to an end, with Joe finding himself frustrated at being unable to explain more.

“I am so sorry, Matriarch. This is not my expertise. There are others amongst my kind who know much more of this than I do.”

She seemed quite excited however, “But your knowledge is… incredible.”

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Joe laughed, “This is what I learned as a child… what all my people learn as children simply by attending the free school.”

She sighed, “Your people must be masters of the ways of lightning.”

Joe shrugged, “We have studied and used it extensively, but I believe there is much that we still do not know. Our knowledge is still so… limited.”

She laughed, “You claim limited knowledge. I fear for my way of lightning.”

Joe smiled, “I’ll help as much as I can.”

She nodded, “Then you were offering a way to show how water is made up of particles. Is my lightning enough to reveal that?”

Joe paused at that, thinking carefully before nodding slowly, “Maybe… it might be possible. Allanar, can you make a bubble of water? Size does not matter but slightly larger will be easier and more useful. Try to keep it as still as possible so we may see easily. Do we have any glasses? Uh… see through cups? It will be helpful if we can see inside.”

The Matriarch raised an eyebrow at that before waving at the maid again who ran off. They all fell into another question and answer time as Gwenvair and Allanar began adding their own questions until the maid returned with some wine glasses.

She handed it over to him cautiously and Joe found himself concerned, “Is it very weak?”

“It can break very easily.”

Joe paused, “Hmm. Then I will be as cautious as possible, but… I need two.”

The Matriarch nodded and the maid handed another over with a concerned look on her face.

“Thanks!”

Joe then turned to the water bubble that Allanar had made and dipped both cups into the water, holding them by the base. After making sure the cups were completely full of water, he turned them upside down but kept them inside the water bubble Allanar had made. The whole action proved to be incredibly easy as there was no container the floating water was in. He simply pressed the wine glasses in from the bottom, then rotated them around the bubble of water until he was holding the glasses upside down from above the water. Joe then turned to the Matriarch.

“OK. Take the silverware, metal ones, and place them as deeply inside the cups as you can. Do not allow your hands to go into the water. Do as you did before, placing only one of the charges in each of the silverware. Do not do too much, but increase it until you see bubbles beginning to form on both silverware. The bubbles will rise and fill the cups.”

The Matriarch nodded and began doing exactly that and bubbles began to rapidly form on the silverware. Those’re… really big bubbles… she’s pumping a lot of power into that…

“Don’t let it get hot. Heat will boil the water, remember? Much like the ‘fire’ mages did before. We wish the water to separate, not boil.”

They waited for a few moments, the glasses filling up with their respective glasses. As they waited, Allanar seemed to be taken aback again, surprised.

“The water is … disappearing again. It is decreasing. It is… changing to gas?”

Joe nodded, “Yes. She is breaking apart the particles that make water and thus it is no longer water. It is now hydrogen and oxygen.”

Allanar stared more closely at what his Matriarch was doing, and everyone watched silently until the cups were empty of water, full of their respective gasses.

Joe smiled and nodded, “You can stop now, but you have one cup of one of the gasses, and another cup of the other gas. Keep the water around them, Allanar, so the gasses won’t escape because I’m not sure which is which, to be honest, but my people would know if we knew which charge the Matriarch used. One of the charges attracts the oxygen while the other attracts the hydrogen. So, one of these cups holds each of the gasses. I’m not sure, however, to really be able to tell which is which, so… Gwenvair? Can you tell if the gas is different?”

Gwenavire looked up at him, startled, before she stared intently at the two cups. Her eyes furrowed but she shrugged, “I think… they are different. I am… uncertain.”

“Does one seem heavier? The other lighter?”

“Heavier? Lighter?”

Joe nodded, “Yes. One of the gasses is hydrogen. It is made of the least particles. The other is oxygen. It is made of six… or eight? I’m not sure, but it should be six or eight times as heavy.”

Gwenvair returned her focus to the two cups, obviously in deep concentration and Joe quieted, allowing her to think. She took some time before she frowned slightly and sat up.

“I am… not certain. I cannot really tell.”

“Try to feel the weight of the entire cup.”

Her eyes rose at that and a smile came, “Maybe…”

She returned while Joe waited patiently. This time, she ended her study much quicker and sat up, smiling.

“One is… much … smaller? Less? It is… so fine. I never realized it before, but the air is… so ... mixed!? There are so many things in the wind, but these are pure… so pure! Entirely of only one thing! I have never seen the like before!”

Joe nodded, “You probably have seen the heavier quite a bit. It is all around us now. It is what we need to breathe.”

Gwenvair’s eyes widened at that then she quickly lost her focus, obviously looking into the air around them. Her focus remained lost until she began smiling brightly. A breeze picked up in the room and soon movement was felt in the air. Joe waited patiently then began to get a bit worried as a thought came to him.

“Uh. Gwenvair? What are you doing?”

She glanced at him and then back, “I’m gathering the different airs, trying for them to be as pure as you have in the cups.”

Joe panicked, “Oh! Wait! No! That is… very dangerous! I told you that one atom allows things to burn, but it is incredibly volatile if too much is in one place… if it is too pure, especially with something that can burn easily... ”

Suddenly, some of the candles in the candelabra began to burn wildly, shooting massive flames into the air much more than they were before. Everyone's eyes around the table shot open in surprise even as Joe trailed off with some fear and leaned back from the table. Then suddenly, a loud pop boomed through the dining room and a large fireball waved up into the air above them forming from the top of the ornate candelabra at the center of the table. The shock wave thumped through the room, but it wasn’t enough to really cause any damage, simply ringing in everyone’s ears.

“Oww!” Joe complained as he jumped but couldn’t move his hands, holding on to the two cups protectively.

“Right! Enough of that. That’s very dangerous! As I said. Just having enough of it in one place will cause an explosion if there is something that can burn or can burn very very quickly. One of them is very small... the smaller one can explode if mixed with the larger one. The larger one allows things to burn, so you need both. But... yeah. If you get enough together and mixed together well, it can destroy buildings and cities,” Joe finished with a smile.

Everyone else in the room looked at her in awe, stunned. The Matriarch seemed ecstatic and Joe sighed.

“Right… you guys might not be listening, but please be careful with this!”

Gwenvair looked to Joe and leapt to her feet before running around the table and leaping at him, pulling him into a massive hug, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have… my way… so… thank you!”