As much as I was teaching little Vimna, she was helping me in equal parts in practice. I had gotten her to understand that I was writing words that had no visual form by mouthing the words she used. “That” was the first word we had managed, and from there it had been less turbulent. She was able to write short sentences by the end of the day, her favorite being “That is my bug” for obvious reasons. Ugh, I’m going to have to visit the market some time and see if they sell any of those strange beetles that faintly tasted like peanut butter. My student would go nuts for those.

Student? No, that word didn’t fit her. It was too impersonal, as if I were shoving her to the side. Pupil is a little better, but it doesn’t convey how I really feel. Little sister? That’s not far off. She reminded me a lot of Humey, not just because of her red scales, but because she had a heart bigger than most and a thirst for knowledge that seemed unstoppable and powerful. I’ll let her decide whether I’m worthy of being her big sister.

As per usual, my three guardians were at the door within the hour, and we all went home. Dad had bought us some kind of takeout dinner beef wellington thing, which was actually pretty good. I ate more than I intended to, and found myself falling asleep before I could move myself to the dorm. Dang, maybe I did go overboard today.

…

I woke up in my bed. Somebody had carried me over here and tucked me in, and had even hung my slate up on the hook beside my bed. My joints were aching, but I still felt compelled to stand and prepare myself for another day. I remembered my plan to visit the market, but I hadn’t been paid yet for my work. Perhaps they made weekly wages in this world, if so then I was broke until the end of the day. Actually, I didn’t even know who paid me or how. I could feel the panic setting in as the uncertainty crept in. I handed my slate to Bahruk.

“Dad, how do I get paid, and when?”

He rubbed at his eyes with a groan, and the disappointed look on his face made my heart plummet.

“You know how long a week is, right?”

Seven days. No, wait, that’s Earth weeks. Oh shit, did I really never learn how long a week was in this world? I shook my head, eliciting another tired noise from my father.

“Kay, I’m going to be honest with you, I expected better. Okay, to refresh your memory, let me ask you how much you remember of those books we learned our words from. How long did alchemist stay at the inn?”

I wrote the number 8 on my slate.

“Good, and how many days did it take for herbalist to mend her broken hand?”

Alright, I’m sensing a trend here. Eight.

“Yep. We work six days, one for each dragon, then rest two for the moons. There are many hundreds of nuances and contradicting beliefs, but number is same. Tomorrow you will be on your sixth day of work, and your boss will pay you. Should be that empty-head Vynrashu for this week.”

Ugh, I had tried not to think about that guy. His boisterous attitude and lack of manners had grated on me in the short time I had spoken with him, and from the rebuild area I could sometimes see him flitting from one project to another to just stand there yapping as the workers tried to get things done. He might carry a sledgehammer around, but I doubt he uses it very often unless he’s trying to show off. Bahruk read my scowl and rolling eyes well enough.

“My apologies. He is son of an elder, and despite his actual skill and ability being quite high he won’t lend a hand unless it's to boost his ego. Fortunately he is a smart man, and he knows better than to try anything that would upset his workers. You’ll be paid tomorrow without a doubt.”

The mention of him being the potential son of my mortal enemy made me instinctively bristle, but knowing that he wasn’t malicious towards those he had authority over was enough to offset my internal rage. What I had to ask next would be enough to take all of that anger away, since I had never asked such an embarrassing question. I felt my cheeks flush as I turned the slate around.

“Can I borrow some money? I wanted to go shopping before work.”

Dad gave me a sly grin, the same kind of grin that Tokols would have on him before one of his pranks.

“I’ll do better: let’s both go to the market. With just the two of us I can teach you a bit more about judging a good deal, just like my own father taught me.”

His true intention was obviously to learn more about me and my impossible schemes, but I could accept the half-truth about learning from a former trader. With no choice but to “say yes”, I nodded for him to follow me out the door. Tokols attempted to follow, but a firm hand from Humey pulled him tail first back to his seat.

…

I made my way to the workshop with a small box full of purchased goods, and my mind was still pouring over the details of the market.

I was told beforehand that the bazaar inside of the mountain was for residents only, so it made sense that the only people I saw there were the rainbow scales of kobolds and a few more of those vaguely goblin looking people. The trade floor itself was massive, with a similar catwalk and lift design to the workshop that functioned as an overhead storage area for the vendors. The chamber was clean and had an abundance of sights and smells that sent my brain spinning. There was everything there, from raw materials to luxury goods, piles of lumber and unprocessed ore sitting adjacent to racks of wine and perfume bottles, trinkets and enchanted jewelry displayed in cases next to a wide array of ripe fruit and vegetables.

As Bahruk had promised he showed me what to look for when going about the stalls, such as from how the traders dressed and what they sold you could glean the markup they had on their goods. He had offered to teach me the art of haggling, but I was unable to do so in a verbal manner, and I would rather not waste my chalk trying to shave a single percent off of a small purchase. I know that had disappointed him, but he would have a much better time teaching Tokols or Mibata, who could out think their way around arguments with stubborn people.

Our perusing of the wares lasted a short while, and every so often I could sense something magical happening within our adjacency, though every time my attention focused on the space it had come from it would move away. Maybe I was just paranoid, but it felt like someone was watching me. Whatever, if they want to watch me buy a bag full of live moss beetles, they are more than welcome to. I tried to budget myself carefully, but I had to get some things that were necessary for making forward progress. A few sheets of parchment, a block of charcoal and wood each, a rusted iron pole, one bar of soap and a proper whetstone to round it all out. To the unassuming eye, these are just random items, but in my hands they would become so much more.

I had just filled my little box of goodies when I heard the great rumble of a lift at the far wall, which I now noticed had windows. All concern of having someone following me vanished as I hurried over to the opening doors with dad in tow. I almost dropped my purchases as my eyes took in the sight of the orange and red desert below me, and the bright blue sky above. Miles upon miles of glistening sand rolled in dunes that reached the distant horizon, and in that far away distance I could see the rising peak of another mountain. Far below at the foot of the city was a small town of bustling trade and daily work. Even from this high, I could make out the distinct tones of various skin colors and hair atop their heads, and clothes that stood in stark contrast to the crimson sand and yellow buildings. Those were humans and elves, some dwarves too, orcs, trolls, there was too much variety to name. Hundreds of different people welcoming incoming traders and guiding them to the enormous metal platforms at the foot of the mountain where they would offload their goods, be paid their coin, and celebrate in the nearby pub or inn. Bahruk had said something along the lines of “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” but I didn’t answer him at the time.I was too engrossed with my first look at the outside world.

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We only left that moment of enraptured amazement due to our work day nearing a start. It was such a bittersweet thought that I would be free to explore that wide open world someday, but I had to remain focused on today if I wanted to reach that goal.

Bringing my focus back on the present, I had noticed a certain pair of small hands shaking at my thigh with concern. Vimna was at my side with her head cocked at me, and once my eyes locked with hers she reached for my slate and wrote me a message.

“HELLO Kayrux I WROTE this.”

Clever girl. Shooting a quick glance to either side to ensure there was no ambush lying in wait, I reached into the bag of bugs I had that was still out of her line of sight. Carefully creeping my hand closer to the edge of the box to draw her attention to it fully, I swished the treat right up to her nose in one sweeping motion. A second passed where she blinked at the object in front of her, but once the recognition clicked she began to hop giddily.

“Bug! Bug! Is for me? Kayroo best!”

Taking her prize in both hands, she scurried off to Dobo to parade her soon-to-be devoured prey in front of her rather exhausted looking father. His green eyes locked with mine with a look of irritation. Sorry pal, but you started this by asking for me to keep teaching her. I’m the cool kind of person that rewards progress and encourages positive behavior, even if it goes against your obvious disdain for insects.

With my goal of ten projects sitting before me, and my sweet little student happily gnawing on the carapace of her prize, I had no choice but to press forward. Well, I would say that, if I didn’t breeze through a stack of repair jobs in less than three hours. Even the most difficult repair was a simple task of replacing some corroded pipes and etching a new set of heating runes.

Well, since I had all of this free time, I could dedicate some time to my own projects until Vimna came back from her second lunch break. I found myself a nice secluded spot in the far back of the repair zone to do my scheming. First item on the docket was to make a comprehensive list of the runes I knew. I had both heating and cooling runes, the pair of runes needed to make air move, and the basic flow limiter. Some new runes were also in my arsenal, but they would require some testing to determine exactly what they did, since they were always part of larger machines that had more than one rune in their system. My focus was brought back to the first two: hot and cold. They were mirrored runes, which meant that they were the same overall shape, but the fine details in the center changed their function. Both were triangles, but the heat one was fed from the base and output from the point, while the other did just the opposite.

I took one of the silver plates and etched the two runes facing away from one another. The point where they received power from was the center, and placing my finger there resulted in a flow of magic that formed ice on one side and fire on the other in an instant. I had to pull my hand away before the drastic shift in temperature harmed me. After it had returned to room temperature I added a limit rune on each. Maybe having a huge mana pool was a detriment in this exact context, and I’d be putting limit runes on everything I make from now on.

As I experimented further, I noticed that both runes were operating in the same way and were drawing in or expelling the thermal energy around them. I knew that the silver wouldn't endure much longer, but I had to understand it. Was it somehow altering the vibration of the atoms? If so, did that mean magic could directly control fundamental forces? I wanted to try the experiment a few more times to understand it.

It was as I focused more on the flow of magic did I see how the runes used it. A spiral of mana was coming from each of them, one drawing inwards and the other expelling out. These spirals were shaped in such a way that the air wasn't moved, but anything that drew close would have the heat changed in a way opposite to the rune. The way the magic flowed confirmed this, since the points on the left and right acted as the focal point of where the heat was moved from.

If I were to connect the two runes at the base, what would that do? My curiosity got the better of me, and on a new disk I attempted to draw both runes sharing a base line, making a rhombus from the two. A limiter was put in place, and to my surprise the device began to sap the heat directly from me. I knew what it was doing just from the warmth it had in my hand: equilibrium. It was trying to balance out my heat with its own and everything making physical contact.

My mind went to one use that would dwarf all others: the perfect cooling system. These runes ignored actual thermal conductivity, and instead directly exchanged heat with the space around them. Any device that had the possibility of overheating could be given these runes and have water poured over them to instantly steam away the excess temperature.

Another idea struck me like the truck that killed me: Humey's dragon fire. He's already shown that he can control how much heat he can output, and can tuck it back into his core when he's done using it just like mana. If I made him a weapon with a high enough melting point, he could superheat it hot enough that even a flaming weapon would look cold by comparison. He would love it!

I added my mad scientist ravings to the growing pile of future projects I had to trudge through. For the moment, I had something else I wanted to explore. Mana. Specifically my own. I could feel the core in my body, but it had always been the untapped reservoir of energy that I had no way of accessing. These runes* didn't seem to need my mana lines to take their fill, but now that I had some understanding of what mana could do I was curious as to what mine was capable of. Those lines from before probably worked like the runes, so I just needed to focus on what I wanted it to do and where.

Let's start with something we know, something that would cause the least damage. Electricity. There was enough copper around here bolted into the cave walls that I was surrounded by a Faraday cage, in a sense. Electricity was the product of electrons flowing, and I could visualize the process I wished to have happen: collect electrons from around me, channel them to my right index finger, hold charge.

The mana wouldn't budge at first, and I had a feeling I knew why: I wasn't speaking what I wanted it to do. Fuck, if I get limited to runes because I can't chant some cryptic spell words I'm going to be pissed. Taking a step back from the issue I instead visualized Tokols and Tuleni when they cast their wordless spells. The magic had purpose, shape, and parameters it would follow. Just like a rune. Maybe they were forming a rune in their mind, or something to that effect.

I haven't seen a thunder rune, but if I had to guess it would probably work like the generator that Dobo had made. Mana was the magnetic field, and I was the conduit. I relaxed my mind and let the magic follow the imaginary schematic I had drawn.

The lines began to pulse with the heartbeat of mana, and I could feel energy all around my being pulled in. Just as I had instructed it to, the energy was channeled from my whole surface to one point at the end of my finger. It was working, albeit very slowly.

I had only willed the mana lines to push a little harder when the electricity I had charged began to swell exponentially. The electrons I had stored exploded forth to the nearest point of ground, which just happened to be a wall shelf. The arcs of bright electricity began to dance from my hand and onto the metal surface leaving the metal hot where they ran

My conductive playground was quickly showing signs of abuse, so I decided to ease off the mana. Instead of complying, the rune in my mind surged to a new level of complexity and power as the air around me crackled with power. I kept my hand aimed at the shelf as I fought to dispel the rune before it could evolve any further, but as the last vestiges of its form were broken the gathered energy left behind was fired all at once. A single brilliant line of light shot from my hand, turning the shelf and a portion of the wall it had been mounted on into a glowing puddle. I fell to my knees, shaking from the terror of losing control of such a violence force that I had created. Dobo came from around the racks that separated me from the rest of the workshop with Vimna at his side.

"Kayrux, are you alright?"

I gave a shaky thumbs up, even as another glob of molten rock dripped onto the floor.