The rest of the week doing scribe work was exhausting, both mentally and physically. My legs were sore from sitting on that chair all day, and cramming an entirely new alphabet into my head threatened to stretch my mental capacity to the breaking point. Raevu wasn’t doing much better, and seemed to really struggle with the Pteronian alphabet’s rules of grammar and backwards sentence structure. It didn’t stop us, but we worked together alongside Wablaks to make sure that both of us had the fundamentals locked down.

Oddly, Elder Faerkurch made no backhanded plays to throw off my progress or tried to interrupt me by staring with the evil eyes. Instead he just worked on his own projects, and only called for Wablaks once as part of a weekly meeting they did every week. He really was just there to do his own thing regardless of what we were up to. It was refreshing to not be checking behind my back whenever I thought about him as one of the child sacrifice endorsing, baby torturing, egg snatching psychopaths that were consistently ruining my life.

The good news just kept on coming when day four of scribe work came around. Mom came home drenched in blood and wearing a serial killer’s grin. She apparently took part in the extermination mission, all the way from the tunnel entrance to the back of the cave monster den where the queen abomination was lurking. Turns out that having fire coursing in your veins makes you tolerant to being doused in organic napalm, and to Juaki it worked more to spike her adrenaline and put her in a berserker state. She wasn’t the best or brightest on the field, but Gods help you if you don’t take her out in one go because she will get back up and tear off a leg in retribution. Despite having a living inferno at the tip of the spear, many of the smaller ones bailed with eggs in tow, meaning that the threat is not yet over but now at a manageable level for regular patrols.

My brothers had some great success in their off jobs as well, and had pulled in a combined sixty Draks. Harvesting and carting didn't pay well, but they each put in a great effort and were recognized for their efforts. Tokols was just paid a regular rate but also performed to an exemplary degree for Tuleni.

Mibata had settled into a relatively sedated groove while foraging for edible fungus, and would get his work done by lunchtime so he could write poetry in the mushroom forest. Nobody judged him or made fun of his hobby at home or at work, but I will admit that it was not what I expected from him. He also had made friends with one of Raevu’s brothers, who had taken a double week shift to offset a relative’s absence. Apparently his name was Thendi, and his hobby was pottery. It made me so happy that he was branching out on his own.

Humey was gradually losing his soft roundness and was beginning to put on some decent bulk. I had advised him that if he wanted to work smarter and not harder he could instead be a cart pusher, which had the effect of making him a one-man team the same as that ebony scaled kobold he had that awkward staring contest with. My brother seems to avoid going into detail whenever they are brought into the conversation, which made me wonder if perhaps he was being bullied by that one. I would obliterate them if they were, but my rational side told me that diplomacy was a better approach for now.

Tokols was probably the one who was having the worst week out of any of us. He had to make potions every day, and the longer it went on the worse he was looking. At first he was just a little stoned and came home with the munchies, but his high became delirium, and from there it descended to full blown hallucinations. Tuleni said he would be fine, but even after clearing his head and taking a wash he was still dazed and confused at the dinner table.

So it was that we were all awake on our weekend morning, gathered around as Humey whipped up a batch of fried eggs and Battercaps. He is really taking on the mantle of the head chef that this society sorely lacks. We all pitched in and helped clean up, then it was down the elevator to the mines for all of us. I genuinely wished that I could have gone on my own to test the ores down there to find the kind that I needed, but the recent introduction of putrid stench emitting cave beasts had made everyone a bit paranoid. Can’t blame them, and I don’t really mind their company, but my personal space was being invaded by too many people for my taste.

With Bahruk leading the way we made it to the office of the foreman, or whatever he’s called, and found him metaphorically shackled to his desk by the tower of forms he was going through. He was short, had teal scales, and looked as though he hadn’t slept in days, but he still greeted us politely and inquired about our visit. The matter of getting permission to do an ore evaluation was simple enough, and in lieu of an inspector we were given a vibrant green paint to mark our desired ores along with the instructions to write the number of cart loads I wanted mined beside the mark. A simple solution, and one that pleased my desire to keep this gaggle of kobolds to a manageable number.

Since it was the weekend there really wasn’t anybody down in the mines except for a few armed kobolds who were just meandering around near the breached tunnel while a scholarly looking kobold poked at the alien nesting material. If they could just keep that nonsense over there and away from my family, that would be alright by me. We went deeper into a numbered tunnel that began showing signs of mining having been performed along the walls and support beams interrupting the path. We had officially reached where the ores were, and it was time for me to dredge up what I knew about raw metals to find what we were looking for.

Understandably, when I began to dig my index claw into the rock that looked to be a zinc deposit, the rest of my family grew disinterested and went about their own exploration. The only person to stick by me was Humey, though I guessed that was because he worked here and could answer my questions about some of the untapped ore locations. For the next few hours that was how it went: Humey leads me to the untouched ore, I identify it and mark the ones I want, the others stay close by but don’t bother me. A good system that led to Mibata being the first to encounter a mine creature, though luckily a passive one. It looked like a giant isopod, a pill bug specifically, but it was just milling about around a tin line. My kobold brain didn't immediately tell me that it was food, and Tokols wasn't watering at the mouth either, so I decided that the aimless creature was not going to be a meal today.

This bug, whom I shall call Tim, was interesting in the fact that its shell looked as though it were made of iron, and even had some pits from rust along its midsection. I wish I had something magnetic that I could test this with, since a living creature with a ferrous shell was such a novel thing. Oh wait, I do have a magnet: my improvised thunder rune. The imaginary rune had a component specifically operating as a magnet for pulling in electrons, so if I were to tweak it so it would work as a high powered magnet without firing the energy collected it would work to find iron or other magnetic objects. Nobody was around, and these mines were relatively empty, so I guess it was time for some more magic experimenting.

As with all of my rune systems, we start with an adjustable limiter that feeds into a smaller limiter to regulate the flow. Next comes an on/off switch directly attached to the magnet component of the thunder rune which will only magnetize the palms of my hands. Just to be safe, and to test if my theory is correct, a final rune that will add a rune that will gauge the flow of mana in the object I am touching. This rune was theoretical, but if it worked like I imagined it would, I could gauge the conductivity of mana in any touched object.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

My first test object would be my bronze short sword. I already knew that it wasn’t magnetic, and from what I could tell copper was magic neutral.My runes lit up to 10% power, and nothing happened as expected. Next* I would try the tin deposit, and find that it had the same reaction as the bronze. My third target was the bug, but I didn’t want to hurt the big guy, so I dialed the array down to 1% and slowly raised the power while my hand kept above his shell.

At low power my runes were barely able to get a decent magnetic field going, and even when I placed my hand on the shell I was getting no feedback from the sensor. Raising the power to 5% I was finally beginning to feel a subtle tug on my palm, but the readout was still blank. Alright, 10% it is. As soon as I adjusted the power my hand glued itself to the metal shelled isopod, who reacted by making a distressed squeak as it curled into a ball. Without any delay I hit the off switch rune and the magnetic field around my hand vanished, leaving me to fall back and catch myself with my tail.

Everyone nearby was concerned about my well being, but I was more worried about the victim of my experiment. I could count myself lucky that the rusty roly-poly didn’t get injured, nor did he hold a grudge for being experimented on. Tim skittered down the tunnel as soon as he was uncurled and I offered him a silent thanks as he departed. The knowledge gleaned from this encounter told me three things: I could detect iron, iron was a magic insulator, and living beings were highly mana conductive. Good to know.

After my encounter with the gentle creature we all agreed that our jaunt in the mines was over and that lunch was going to be takeout. I stopped by the mine director’s office and paid thirty Draks for my three cartloads of ore to be mined and delivered to the workshop. It hurts my wallet now, but I know it will pay itself back eventually. In the meantime, I had to drop a few more Draks getting everybody some decent nutrition, leaving me at just around sixteen Draks left for my workshop furnishing budget, as well as my scribe pay of twelve Draks. Starting pay as a scribe is pretty meager, though I suppose it’s enough to get by for a week if you’re only buying food for yourself.

Well since I was already going up, it would probably be pertinent to ride the lift all the way up to the market and get some supplies for my inventing. Everybody was on board with following me up there, even though I made it explicitly clear that I was buying stuff for work. The bazaar was the same as it was before and was filled with the usual number of merchants and peddlers attempting to hook passing kobolds on the wares in stock.

I counted six of those imperceptible eyes wandering the marketplace before we arrived, and two more were beyond the large cargo door of the great external lift. They must be security of some kind, like floating CCTV cameras. If so, why were they invisible to everyone else, and why did they panic every time I caught a glimpse of them? Perhaps they’re owned and controlled by the elders that are actively against me. That would explain their skittishness and preference to remain undetected, but that just made me wonder why they were here in the market and on certain floors below us. Yet another layer to the mystery was added, though I already had the assumption that this was another method of controlling the people.

It would probably cause a lot of problems if I were to open fire against them, so for now I would just keep them at a distance and focus on collecting some raw materials. Quartz crystals, a barrel of oil, a few vials of alchemical liquids, and a set of scales with actual lead weights were the only things I could afford without going completely broke. Everything was loaded onto a lift bound for the workshop and would be waiting for me at the start of the week. Customer service in this city was top notch, even for odd requests like mine.

With a light wallet and two of my needed tasks crossed off, I considered our outing over. Our parents wanted to go have a kobold date night, so we kids took the cart-load of things my brothers had bought and went home after promising to not do anything reckless. Nothing fancy this time, just a whole lot of assorted ingredients and beer, and someone had bought a wooden shield. A fully restocked pantry means a den full of happy kobolds, which also means that I can spend my free time experimenting with safe magic.

I still had the magnet rune system assembled in my mind, and it was interesting to note that I didn’t have to keep it visualized for it to remain intact. Still, it would be best to avoid complacency and remove the runes after use to prevent another misfire. Since it was still a usable system, it would work as the baseline of my next experiment. Replace the magnet and sensor with the runes of air intake and air output respectively, and orchestrate them to focus on drawing in air from behind me and push it along the length of my arms. With safety systems still in place and power output kept in the low percentages, I began my test while in the dorm.

At first I couldn’t feel anything, and I once again realized that the runes didn’t have enough power to activate all the way. The limit runes were working as intended, though it now occurred to me that a non-variable limit rune was probably decreasing my output into a tenth, so my 1% on the adjustable one was actually a tenth of a percent. Keeping that in mind, I wanted to see what a stable output looked like, so increments of thousandths were better than hundredths.

Pushing the output to a total 1% gave me a decent result of a slight breeze flowing across my scales. The way it worked its way against the grooves in my outer layer felt nice and refreshing as if I were standing by an open window. I tested my newly formed hypothesis that kobolds like a cool breeze by stepping behind Mibata with the magic active. He glanced back at me with a questioning look in his eye but made no comment or complaint. Humey had a much more noticeable reaction of slightly turning his head from side to side as he cooked, then thanked me as I went to my next test subject. Tokols seemed more interested in seeing what objects I could displace by doubling the power.

This is when I noticed that the percentages I was gauging were not the output I was seeing. Going from 1% to 2% was like switching from a desk fan to a leaf blower, and pushing any further wasn’t an option because of the way the runes began to strain. Perhaps magic could be regulated in a linear fashion of percentages, but its actual effect followed an exponential change. That had awful implications for when I was displaying my magic to Tuleni. I only had my mana flowing for a few seconds, but that beach ball sized magic ball would have quickly spiraled out of control if I hadn’t closed it off.

Well, since I had the setup put together, and my only output was wind, then I guess I could try letting the air movement runes change. I went back into the dorm and aimed my arms at the floor, which pushed the dust on the ground around in dainty swirls. This time, I allowed the runes to take in 3% mana and hold it there, and the effect was a gust of wind that threatened to throw me off balance. I held firm, all while keeping my attention on the jittering wind runes. The intake rune was pulling itself towards the output rune, the latter widening and splitting down the middle. The two met, fused, and grew what I could only call wings. The mana was like a funnel, pulling in air from the back and directing it forward in a narrower line, but also applying a small degree of spin to it.

I realized too late that this improved rune, one that I dubbed the “wind rune”, was drastically more efficient than the other runes were together. For a brief moment I felt the power channeled through the runes glowing with potential, then the next my body was weightless. I barely had time to switch off the rune array and open my eyes before I met the ceiling head first. I should count myself lucky that the ceiling in here is only around eight feet high, because falling just my height to the ground was better than some place with high ceilings. I landed well enough and was able to keep upright a second before falling to my knees cradling my throbbing head.

Nothing was broken and there wasn’t any blood, but damn it that hurt. I staggered over to the doorway and got Tokols’ attention by knocking on the wall before handing him my slate that had a written explanation of the situation. He gave the area a once over, made me sip some of that green healing sludge, then told me he was beginning to think that I was a danger to myself. I probably am, but the pursuit of knowledge is one of many dangers. I wrote that on my slate only to have him take my slate to bonk my nose with it and scold me for being reckless. Okay, you made your point, and you’re right. I really do need to be careful with this magic stuff.

…

The dream again.

Empty city.

Broken altar.

“Improve”

Drifting in the void.