Bahruk and I worked hard to make a different selection of gem parts. We had round gems, square gems, octagons and hexagons, and even a few gems that came to a point at the end. The effect seemed to be that flat gems would work only with their flat faces as different logic gates, round gems would have some kind of capacitor or resistor reaction, and pointed gems would focus mana into the point instead of to the faces while pushing the energy along its path at a higher speed. I’m sure a technological wizard could take all these different gems and make a fully functional computer in this world, but my mind wasn’t geared for that kind of thinking.

As we worked and tested the multitude of varying gem and shape combinations I pitched the idea of selling them to wealthy people, and as I expected it was quickly shot down. As it turns out, high grade gems had certain laws and restrictions they had to pass through, and since neither of us were doing this under the direct order of the master merchant elder it would be impossible for us to sell these without him noticing and sicking the kobold cops on us. I hate trade laws and taxes, so I’m going to keep all of these shiny rocks for myself since making them for the purpose of inventing technically falls under my domain as an inventor.

Going back over my notes on the crystal components of dubious legality, I had determined that each type of gem we had could work in these regards: emerald took more than one input to get an output, ruby would only pass the mana if it was fed from a single source, sapphire would split the mana into every direction, and amethyst would always redirect mana to flow out to the clockwise adjacent face of the input side. When they were made into round or pointed ones I noticed that rubies and amethysts would build a charge before release with rubies going for a single pulse and the amethyst making multiple bursts of power, the sapphire would always cause the mana to flow in a concentrated line for a while after leaving the gem, and emeralds sent the mana out in a rolling fog. Perhaps these could have an effect on runes that they fed into, causing them to operate differently depending on how they were tuned.

I racked my brain to try and find some use for them, but it had already been a few hours of dad and I playing around and testing magic changing rocks. The gray matter needed some sugars if it was going to make any more progress, and I wanted to get out and stretch my legs. I slid my slate over to my dad, who was scratching at the metal shell of the happily chirping Tim.

“I need a break. Want to get something to eat?”

He let out an amused chuff before springing from the stool with renewed vigor.

“Yeah, sounds good. I know a place you will like.”

We each went and grabbed some cash before making our way to the door, only for something in my mind to stop me like an invisible wall placed over the entrance. What was this feeling of dread I was getting, and why was it pulling me back towards the hobby room? I allowed this foreign sensation to guide me back through the doorway where it vanished, but it became clear from a cursory sweep of the room what was wrong. The work table was covered in a mound of precious metals and gems, the kind that would fetch an asking price in the thousands of Draks. Was fate trying to warn me that someone might steal all of this while we were out? Thanks for the warning, but how was I supposed to hide all of this?

Bahruk wandered in after me and saw the predicament, though he already had an answer.

“We should probably put this all in the storeroom to be safe. Wouldn’t want a kobold of poor reputation to take a gander in our den while we were out, now would we?”

That was a good idea, but I wanted to test something as well. We moved all of the expensive items into the storeroom, but I intentionally left behind a small pile of valuables that would be a decoy treasure mound. I tried to make it seem as if an apprentice jeweler was working on something by leaving a small sapphire and a few bent pieces of silver metal lying around off to the side with my bargain bin tools lying across the table in a semi-organised way. If fate was going to give me warnings like this from now on, I wanted to have some assurance that they were reliable and had some manner of accuracy to them. The only way to test for accuracy was to give it a shot, and from the miniscule sense of despair I felt when leaving the den I knew that it was still actively warning me of some incident in the future.

With the potential damage mitigated and our wallets ready we set off for this place that dad wanted to take me. We didn’t take the lift to get there, but it was only two floors above us and a quarter rotation around the city. This was the same floor as Tuleni’s clinic, but no matter how long I stared at the tunnel that led to her abode I never saw the rest of our family emerge from there. The place I was led to looked like another of those food courts the kobold architects were so fond of, but the main kitchen was made in the center of the area and the walls were made of smaller vendors. Our focus was set on the kitchen in the center, and the unusual things going on in there.

First off, the kobold running this place was one of those vaguely goblin looking people, and from up close I could finally see and smell that they were indeed kobolds. Given the presence of those predatory eyes, the terrible claws, a pair of twisted black horns, as well as the patches of scales present around the shoulders and forearms, I couldn’t confidently call them goblin-like anymore. The woman woking here was a kind lady with gentle eyes and a small bun of brown hair tied up atop her head, and she was more than eager to ramble on about her kind when Bahruk asked on my behalf. Apparently people sharing an appearance to her are kobolds as well, but they like to be called Imps or Implins.

She also took the time to give us her name, Myu-Mill and let us look around her business since it was a slow day for her. The kitchen she showed us was impressive for its small size: she had a nice fire pit burning in the center, a counter running the length of the back wall covered in spices and knives, and a series of catwalks that allowed her to get up and around to the various shelves she had around here. I only noticed when she got close to me on the platform she was on that her head only came up to my side because she was up there, but on the ground she would only reach my knees. Regardless of her height, she was able to run this kitchen on her own and serve hundreds of kobolds as big as us a meal every day.

The meal in question was currently rotating above the smoldering fire in the center of the kitchen. It was one of those chunks of meat that was rotated slowly over a smoky flame, which if I remembered correctly was called shawarma or al pastor back on Earth. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had it. Either way, the meat that spun slowly over the embers smelled heavenly, and my mouth was watering just thinking about it.

Suddenly, Mye-Mill let out a delighted squeal as she noticed Tim scuttling by my feet.

“Oh goodness, is that yours? Oh he is just a cutie scootie! I have a pet too, you want to meet her? Blop, wake up Blop.”

She gestured to the fire for it to respond, and from the ashes rose the head of an ash gray lizard with black spots. It’s tired eyes looked around at the gathered people until it recognized its owner, and once seen she responded by giving it a tickle under the chin to its delight.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Blop is a fire salamander, and she’s been with me for years now. My business was always a burden financially, but when you don’t need to buy firewood for cooking anymore it gets a whole lot easier. She eats a little of the dish herself as payment, but it’s all good. The customers love her, I love her, and she’s more than happy with her job.”

Tim seemed intrigued by Blop, but upon getting close it became quickly apparent that Blop was not fond of her visitor. A small jet of flame rolled over the isopod’s shell, but the densely armored critter didn’t seem to notice the attack. He persisted in poking at her with his antennae, and once he was satisfied with his inspection he made his way over to the corner and began climbing his way into the kitchen’s rubbish bin. Dad was quick enough to stop him, but not before Tim snagged a prize with his little jaws.

Mye-Mill got a good laugh over the exchange, but Blop seemed nonplussed by the bug’s behavior. We apologized for Tim’s behavior and thanked her for her kindness, as well as paid a little extra for giving us a larger than average portion with each of our orders. We both took our meals and the trash munching bug over to a spot overlooking the bustling city and ate while watching everything go on.

After a while I began to get this incredibly unsettling feeling that we were being watched, and soon enough I detected mana moving around us that matched the profile of those awful floating camera eyes. I wanted to just ignore them, but the more I did the closer they crept and the more disturbed my thought became. I looked over my shoulder at the one that shared the same floor as us and stared it down as it bobbed silently in the air. Unlike the other ones from before, this device didn’t flinch under my gaze and instead seemed to want to draw my attention towards it. This was too sketchy for me to be relaxed about, meaning that I was checking every possible angle that my head could turn to face.

As if right on cue, a terrible spine chilling stare bored into my soul. I recognized the intense malice and foreboding drone that rang in the back of my mind as the vision of one of the accursed elders. I traced the line of their magic stare back to its source, but my eyes only drifted up to look into the blue sky above where the mana had come from. The other eyes that had surrounded me scattered in every direction save for the one I had looked at. I resumed our silent interrogation, but the eye seemed satisfied with whatever had just happened and turned to leave.

A deep well of hatred and anger was boiling up alongside a weeping pit of fear. Almost all sound around me was beginning to become drowned out as a crackling was filling my ears, and that toxic rage was now pushing against my every thought. What were they doing messing with me like that? Did they think I was just going to balk when they revealed themselves? Did they think I would be afraid? My jaw clenched hard enough that my muscles began to complain from the pressure I demanded of them, the feeling of pure vitriol behind my eyes making me want to bite at the throat of every last-

“Kayrux, we need to go home. Now. “

I barely registered the words, but looking back at my father made the fury rising up from my stomach fizzle out. He looked absolutely petrified, and he wasn’t looking at anyone else but me. I only noticed as my mind slowed down that I was panting like some animal, and that my hands were trembling in front of me. Oh God, I must look like a real psychopath. People who were walking by had also begun to stop and stare, which only added to the awful gut feeling of guilt that had taken the rage’s place.

I clutched my bag and my slate to my chest and skittered away as quickly as I could without breaking into a full sprint. Dad was close behind me with Tim curled in his arms, but through the tears running down my cheeks they looked like a purple and gray blur tailing me. I passed through the entrance of the den and flew into the hobby room to sit behind the crates and boxes in the corner. I tucked my head into my arms and hid until I could think rationally again.

What’s wrong with me? I’ve never been a spiteful or angry person before, but just having that feeling of one of the elders watching me sent me into a blind rage. It was as if I were forcibly pushed out of control within my own mind and as I struggled to free myself I was locked in the metaphorical trunk. Flashbacks to the inside of the cage came to mind, the conversation with the mirror dragon too, but these memories weren’t enough to cause me that kind of fury, were they? I clutched my knees to my chest tighter and locked myself tight with my tail.

I don’t want to hurt anyone.

I don’t want to be a monster.

I don’t want to scare my family.

“Are you alright my dearest daughter?”

I barely loosened my grip on myself enough to peer up at him. Dad’s face wasn’t one of terror anymore, but was now that calm sort of worry and concern that a father gets when he wants to check on his panicking daughter. I didn’t want to move from my spot yet, not until that crackling sound stopped. I pushed my snout back into my shins and tightened the coil of my tail until I was packed as small as I could be.

“I will assume that your egg-shape means that you are not alright. I will wait right here until you are ready to answer me, but I need you to come out of the corner first. It is important that you see what is happening to yourself in the mirror.”

What does that mean? I uncurled my arms and wiped the tears from my arms, and only when I did so could I detect the flickering light on the wall behind me. I carefully crawled out of the corner and pushed myself onto my feet, then faced the mirror to look at my reflection. What the hell?

I looked into the eyes of my mirror self, and I could understand why my father had been struck by absolute dread. My eyes were glowing, actually emitting light enough that the golden color of my eyes were like the filaments of incandescent lights. Along my back was a ridge of raised spike-like protrusions I had never seen before that pulsed with energy, and between them came arcs of golden energy that snapped with the power of thunder magic. Only now did I smell it, but the air of the hobby room reeked of ionization and burnt wood. I looked back into the corner and saw scorch marks from where my back had pressed into a box.

I looked into myself to inspect the mana lines, and was aghast to see that multiple variable limiters and thunder runes had formed along my mana lines. I reached out mentally to turn the power of these runes off, but the moment I released the limiter to allow it to drain its excess mana it would spring back to its 10% output limit and send a surge of mana into the thunder rune to cause another spark of electricity.

Bahruk approached me carefully, but one stray jolt touched the floor at his feet. I jerked away from him and raised my hands to signal that he needed to stay away, but he took another step towards me with his own hands raised.

“Kayrux, you need to listen to me. You’re cascading right now, but not involuntarily. Some part of you is trying to defend itself against something and won’t stop until you recognize that you’re safe now. Trust me when I say that you are safe here in our home. The front door is blocked, the room we are in is blocked, and you have your father here to protect you.”

He reached over and grabbed the copper sword from the scabbard, and with one swift movement drove it deep into the earth at his feet using his earth magic. He knelt by the plunged blade and clenched a fist over his heart.

“I am not a brave man, nor am I a strong man, but my wits are what I will use to defend my family. Never again will I stand by helplessly as my family is harmed, and no more will you suffer for our sake. Come, take hold of this blade and disperse your magic into the ground. Your power is vast, but the mountain might yet be greater. Even if it does not stop the cascade, you may be able to think of a remedy once your body is purged of the excess power.”

What other choice did I have but to go along with his plan? None, and right now that was the only logic I needed to think about. He stepped away from the makeshift lightning rod, far enough that he wouldn’t catch any stray shots of magic, and nodded for me to go. I braced one heel against the wall, took one deep breath, and lunged forward towards the handle. The lightning beat me to it, but in the end that was all I needed. In that instant the copper sword was erased from my view and every limiter was drained of power by the thunder runes now hungrily devouring more mana to replace the spent electrons, giving me just enough time to will every limiter closed and locked shut until the leftover mana could bleed out from the thunder runes. My body ached and my muscles spasmed, but my mental hands would not release their death grips on the rebellious limiters until every thunder rune had been dismantled.

When there was no more mana coursing through me without my say so, I gave Bahruk a thumbs up from my prone position to signal that the coast was clear. I felt his hands pull me from the ground and wrap me in a hug and Tim's little antennae poking at my leg curiously. I think that’s enough magic from me for one day.