Dobo was giving off some real ‘you done fucked up’ energy right now, and I wasn’t really excited to hear what he had to say. Instead of letting me grab my slate and write an explanation of what I had been doing while he was out of the lab, he chose to look around the room until he saw the open vault door then dragged me in there with my writing board and the various magic metals. Vimna and Sheep wanted to be part of this as well, but a stern bark was all it took for them to stop in their tracks with a look of alarm. He peeked his head out of the room twice to ensure that his kids weren’t following, then began to pace back and forth while muttering to himself.
“No, she can’t have…not possible. Many hundred spans away. She too young, maybe not know. Grr, just ask her, then knowing.”
His eyes stopped looking around the floor for answers once he decided that I had them. This wasn’t an angry look so much as it was a panicked and terrified look.
“Kayrux, you knowing what that is?”
He pointed a finger to the ores while also tilting his head forward for emphasis. My response was to just shrug while not dropping them. Shiny metals with weird properties? Give me something to work with here dude, I'm clueless.
“That purple metal, is something not supposed be here. Is Gylnedun, sacred metal of far away place. Having it means do great sin of stealing it from flying mountains. Only three places can happen, all too far for you ever go and return in less one year. You make this metal somehow, should not be here.”
Oh, so it's considered sacrilege for me to have this even if it isn't what you think it is. I plucked the supposed important metal up and looked it over, but when I went to drop it back into my hand it drifted down slowly as though it were low gravity. Ooh, now that’s something neat! I did this dropping the magic purple metal a few times over, watching it drift back down to the palm of my hand in slow motion with awe. Dobo cleared his throat, drawing me back to the issue at hand.
Sorry Dobo, it’s just too wild to ignore. Anyway, what about this stuff then? I poked at the white iron scraps and the off gold nickel, and even turned the copper green with a surge of mana. Huh, it’s making a fizzing sound this time, is it supposed to be doing that? Dobo's eyes went wide as he watched it happen, then backed away in fear.
“Not do that! Bad metal, poisonous air if do that. Ugh, scaring me Kayrux. Dobo not wanting die by killer copper. Other metals not know, but not trust either. Stink if magic so much it make sick.”
Yikes, no more magic copper! Wait, you can tell they're magical just by smelling them like I do? Does that mean you're sensitive to mana too, or does it mean…oh no. I didn't keep track of how much mana I was feeding these samples, and I had the feeling that going all out just to reach maximum saturation might have been a miscalculation on my part.. Alright sensors, tell me exactly how much mana each of the samples holds separately, and tag them by name.
Mana per item:
Copper: 0
Nickel:1,562
Aluminum (Gylnedun): 26,067
Iron: 102,341
I must have visibly grimaced at the amount present in the iron shavings, because Dobo retreated beyond the vault door and was making a low whine. I wasn't aware of just how much mana it took, I was just pushing the mana out along an open line without a limiter in place and this was the result of just going until maximum saturation dinged in my head. Even taking into account that each sample was different in size and had different saturation percentages, it still seemed ludicrous that the numbers were that high. Seriously, the iron was the smallest at just some scraps in the palm of my hand while the aluminum was a good handful of metal just a tad bigger than the nickel.
Emergency disarming of possible explosives plan: rapid mana drain via overcharged collector runes. Just the same as when taking the charge out of that angry mana stone, I set up an inverted limiter rune to keep myself from any dangerous discharge and a backup limiter behind the collector for the same reason. For simplicity I'm just going to call this the mana drain system, but for now I need to run this before anything goes nuclear. The rune jerked as the 40% mana flow slammed into it. But it still managed to draw the mana out by the hundreds like a greedy siphon.
I watched in relief as the lustrous gold metal returned to a simple nickel lump once more, followed shortly by the aluminum losing its marvelous sheen and color. All but the iron was returned to normal, but it was once the mana had been completely drained from the other samples that I noticed that my effort to siphon the charged scraps wasn't working. Come on you stubborn little bits, give me back that mana. No good, the collector just doesn't have the strength to overcome the cohesion of the stored charge.
It doesn't have the power on its own, but what if there was more than one? All three lines in my left arm and all three in my right soon had a collector rune set to 40% power, but even still the iron wasn't giving in. Don't make me do this you little scraps, it isn't worth the trouble. Fine, we'll see how you hold up against 50% on all six collectors. There we go, that's the kind of flow I want to-
Ow, what's going on with this mana? My arms are beginning to hurt as though it were moon-fall again, and the shaking coming from them almost made me drop the white iron. The runes definitely wanted to evolve, but now wasn't the time for that. Just breathe and take it slow, let the mana flow in a controlled way. As the iron became less enriched the stored charge began to flow out faster, causing me one final surge of fiery pain in my arms as it practically threw the last of the mana into my collectors.
I opened my eyes and hand to look at what was left, only to find the iron rusted to dust, the aluminum blackened and bent, and the nickel crumbled to fragments. Looks like being unenriched causes some major degradation to the material. I turned my hand over, letting the bits and pieces fall in a cloud of brown sand to the floor. We're all good Dobo, no more hazardous materials here. Woof, I need something to eat after all of that.
The previously cowering kobold was now staring down at the discarded with a look of relief, his little head nodding in agreement to my thumbs up of assurance.
“Good, good, never do that again. Would weep for many days if you executed for holy defiling.”
Excuse me? I thought the capital punishment around here was exile, not full on execution. I guess they take the possible desecration of sacred places as a much more extreme crime than anything else a single kobold could manage to accomplish. I didn't get the chance to think about what sort of other crimes might earn one the death penalty due to the sudden entry and tackle attack of Vimna. Whatever was said by Dobo upon her arrival was drowned out by her wails of distress.
“No! Not take Kayroo! She not do a wrong thing, just not understood! Don't get executed Kayroo, not good for you!”
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Wasn't planning on it Vimna. Fortunately she wasn't pinning my arms so I could write her some comforting words to get her off of me before my ribs were reduced to gravel. After she was satisfied that my head was going to stay atop the shoulders they were attached to she let me go and went to my side to resume rubbing her cheek into my bicep. Here Dobo, take the slate and answer me this.
“Why do metals change when they’re soaked in mana? Also, why is it sacrilege to have any of that Gylnedun stuff?”
He didn’t waste any time in answering, though he did keep turning my tablet over in his hands as he spoke.
“Hmm, I think is because mana touches things in strange ways. Mana gathers where energy strong or life plenty, so some things get very thick with magic. Metals, woods, crystals, rocks, even creatures and wet stuffs. Gylnedun come from flying mountains, all were said to been made by the Sixth dragon when he travel world for many years. Holy places where magic grows strong and blesses lands below. Taking it means you enemy of dragons, only allowed collect if blessed by elders.”
So it wasn’t like taking some kind of holy relic so much as defacing a historic landmark without permission. As for ever being allowed to have any of this holy metal for my own, I’m never going to be given permission by the elders, so that takes it off the table. Man, purple gravity metal sounds so cool, and I can’t even experiment with it unless I want to be killed for treason. What a bummer.
I got my slate back from him and reassured him that I wouldn’t make any of it ever again. I wish he knew what the others were, but I guess I could go to a more knowledgeable man who just so happens to be my second boss and record keeper of the whole city. Even if Faerkurch didn’t know what it was I was sure he could at least point me to the correct books or people to figure it out for myself. Future problems for a future me, the present me was hungry for knowledge now and was wondering just what the device that had been built by Dobo and passed around multiple times was since Sheep was standing in the doorway with it.
“Let’s get out of the vault so you can show me what you built. I won’t do any more magic metal stuff today, I just want to see what you made.”
This seemed to switch Dobo’s current mood in a complete 180 degree turn and set him in a really upbeat mood. Sheep handed him his device as he strode past, then took Vimna’s hand as she walked by. He was quite anxious after being ordered by his father, but Vimna seemed to understand and be able to calm him down with a few whispers and headpats. Aww, you two are so adorable!
The odd device, which now that I got a good look at it just looked like a big copper canister with a thick leather sleeve and a silver plate over it, was sat upon the floor aimed at my faraday cage. Dobo knelt by the gizmo and began twisting different rings on the top and bottom segments of it until there was an audible click. He chuckled giddily as he set is upright and backed away, his finger touching the silver plate for a moment to start some kind of ticking from within the machine. I swear, if you just brought me a pipe bomb and called it an invention I’m gonna hit you Dobo.
My assumptions were disproved when a humming began to envelop the air in a rhythmic pulse coming from his machine. The atmosphere became electric as my scales stood on end of their own volition, the whole space of my lab now becoming some kind of super conductive zone by the feel of it. Dobo pointed to the device to get us to pay it mind, which was a good thing as it had begun to levitate ever so slightly with electric arc coming from its top and bottom panels. He put an arm up and gestured for us to get back a few steps right before the canister entered a spin cycle unlike anything I’d ever seen.
A dome of electricity began to form around the gadget, the faraday cage caught midway through being subject to a majority of the offloaded power this thing was generating. Dobo demonstrated its power by picking a loose piece of metal and stone from the floor and chucking them into the glowing zone. The moment the objects entered the field they were pelted with rampant beams of energy until only molten globs of rock and copper made it to the floor. Scanner runes, just what am I looking at?
Thunder Magic.
I never would have guessed that. I nudged Dobo with my plank, my question plain and simple for his sake.
“What is happening?”
He had to shout to be heard over the constant buzzing, but even as loud as his voice was it was still a challenge to discern what he said.
“Thunder shield! Device uses Melnythia as magic source, makes thunder runes go big zappy! Use shape rune making round space, thunder rune gives it power, result here!”
“Amazing! How long does it last?”
His face drooped as a realization hit him. He looked from me to the crackling field, then back to me with a huge grin.
“I having no idea!”
Damn it all man, you’re the one who was just scolding me about reckless magic tomfoolery and this is what you reply with? You damn hypocrite! Ah who am I kidding, this dome of thunder destruction is awesome and should burn out soon. Thunder magic is one hell of a mana hog, and if my runes were anything to go by then the scrap of super zinc ought to burn out-
Poof. The energy vanished as the canister clattered to the ground lifelessly, a trail of thin white smoke rising from under the leather sleeve. Two minute burn time, not bad for a palm full of metal. Dobo crept over and picked up the spent machine, his teeth all bared in a full on mad scientist grin.
“Thunder magic amazing, yeah? So much power, so beautiful, makes things glow and spark without touching them directly. Kayrux understands, she is thunder magic lover too. Seen your lab glow with thunder magic few times now, and know first spell you cast was thunder spell too. Is in the blood of our kind.”
Vimna and Sheep were creeping out of the room behind him, but when I nudged my head towards them he spun around and quickly changed gears to be more approachable towards them.
“Children, where going? Day is only half through and is not even midday meal time.”
The siblings looked to one another then back to us in worried apprehension. Vimna spoke for the both of them in this instance.
“We not wanting get electric fried. Sheep want go home so I guide. I come back later when he okay. See you later Roo, not let dad do more danger things.”
Dobo was at a loss for words, but when he turned to look up at me he finally understood that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with him given the state of my faraday cage. I’d been unable to see it through the sparkling lights and dancing arcs, but the entire upper and lower mounting structure was warped beyond repair, the bolts melted together into a solid lump of metal. Not cool dude, this took us hours to get assembled the first time. Whatever, I’ll just use it till it breaks anyhow, so why fret every little blemish?
I went back over to the armory and locked away my newest research notes along with all of my tools, then ushered Dobo out of my lab. You need to get back to your own job after our midday break, and I need to get Tim back from the person who had so graciously offered to babysit him. Thanks Zokkos, I owe you one for keeping my bug safe. The clamor of lunch-bound kobolds began not long after, meaning that it was time for me to get some grub. All of this magic and metal play has left me starving.
…
Vimna came back after lunch and helped me keep Tim under control for the rest of the shift while I played around with casting the same measuring cubes in copper and aluminum. Super magnets don’t care what metal you’re made of, super magnets will melt anything! Goofing off aside, Vimna seemed much more relaxed now that she had spent some time just doing stuff with her big sister Roo and twin brother Sheep. Speaking of the boy, I thought he has the makings of following in his father’s footsteps given how attentive he was to everything. Those eyes were just the same as Dobo and Vimna’s: filled with an ever-burning curiosity and drive to unravel the world’s secrets. A whole family of incredibly smart kobolds, what a delight.
I didn’t have anything else I wanted to do after that, so once the new measuring cubes were tucked away and the lab closed off it was out of work a little early so I could treat Vimna to a little treat. She and I hadn’t ever done anything like this, but I felt that she had earned it given her devotion to the lab. No pesky robot eyes floating around, a sale of crunchy fried bugs and cheese sauce, and a nice plate of sweet and spicy pork chops for the two of us. We said our farewells and went back to our own homes, her taking a downward going lift and me taking the up lift next to it. I got home and flopped down in the dorm sleeping pit, my consciousness going out like a light the moment I found a comfortable pose to sleep in.