The docile and quiet atmosphere of the clinic’s back room returned when a majority of the patients had their fill of both sweets and stories then returned to their beds willingly, were ushered back by Tokols, or gently picked up by the gargantuan doctor Tuleni. They couldn’t have left at a better time since I was actually starting to get a headache from how much chatter was bouncing around the cave walls. With our somewhat private room to ourselves once again the three of us girls went back to just having a simple chat over more drinks and a secret twelfth batch of cakes that I had stashed away within one of the medicine jars. Our little talk went round and round, circling over how Vimna was looking forward to her job selection and how Raevu would be heading off to a much deeper part of the fungal woods to participate in what equates to a logging expedition, so the two of them had big plans for the following week. My own contributions to our conversation were meager at best due to my already lethargic nature from the stormy weather and the added exhaustion that came with being a spur of the moment baker for two dozen ravenous lizards, but I did manage to convey to the both of them that I was ecstatic that the two of them were getting along.

Our talks ended when Tuleni came and escorted Vimna back to her bed so she could be administered some more pain relieving salves, but not before I snuck in one more great big hug. My attempt to retrieve Tim had me searching all around for him, only to see that he was acting as a garbage cleaner for the dead leaves coming off of Wilter under the supervision of my brother. Grandma made it clear that she intended to have some quiet time around there, so visitation hours were officially over following our exit. Raevu and I walked together back to the city center only to find that the downpour had gotten stronger during our absence, and it was only midday right now. How much worse the rain would get was a mystery to me, but not wanting to be caught outside when it inevitably became a true thunderstorm was my only motive as we snuck along the dry side of the floor we were on.

We had crossed about halfway around the city when a voice called out to us from a stairway we were passing. To my complete surprise, it was my mother standing at the top of the steps wearing some kind of reddish-brown tabard complete with a battle ax and shield that she used to block the rain coming her way. She descended the steps and grabbed ahold of both of us, dragging the two of us out of the noisy area and into a side tunnel where she sat us down at some kind of bench. From within her hip pouch she retrieved a cloth to wipe her face dry with before offering it to us to do the same as she scolded us.

“What are you two doing wandering the city when there is a storm out? I know the scribe hall is closed, but I had wrongly thought that you two would have gone somewhere safe to avoid this. This is the same level as Tuleni’s, so why did you not stay there?”

I passed Raevu the rag as my hands scribbled my reply on the slate quickly, both because I was a little jittery from the cold and because I was a bit impatient hearing my mother take that tone with me.

“We were staying there, but she told us that she wanted it quiet around the clinic. We were going back to our home to wait it out when you found us.”

Juaki rolled her eyes while she unfastened her shield from her arm, her head shaking in the same way it did whenever the mention of something she already knew the answer of.

“Damn mother, she always forgets that others are not as large as her and can be tossed aside in this kind of weather. She probably assumed that you two are tough girls that could weather the storm and make it home safely without issue. I would agree if this were a regular storm, but this year’s rain season is looking to be an aggressive one. I will ensure that both of you make it to our den safely, and if raevu wishes to stay the night then we can certainly make room for her once more. Is this good for both of you?”

I glanced at my best friend, who was still trying to dry around her jagged little horns while nodding that she was in agreement, before giving her a definitive thumbs up. She smirked as she turned to look back down the tunnel towards the rain and tracked a small trickle of water flowing down the tunnel on the far wall.

“We should hurry before things get worse then. If the water is making its way down the tunnels, then our path home will undoubtedly become harder to cross when the water pools around our doorway. Stay close to me and I will use my shield to keep you dry, and if you require warmth then I can use the dragon’s fire to help you in that way. “

The two of us rose to our feet and made sure everything was good to go, then hurried behind my mother as we braced ourselves for the coming onslaught of cold rain. We trudged through ankle deep water all the way home, and more than once I feared for my life as I felt the current of the water under my feet pulling towards the edge of the overhang of the floor we were on even though I was certain that the railing would hold if I fell on it. What would normally be a ten minute walk felt more like twenty minutes in a cyclone until we finally came up to the tunnel entrance adjacent to the cargo lift, which was our way home. Just as she had said the tunnel was beginning to see a lot of water collecting further down the way, and if the storm came down harder we might have to learn to swim to get home.

Unlike when I had tried to open our heavy front door by shoving and pushing against it with much effort, Juaki displayed her warrior’s strength by moving it with only one hand. The three of us stepped in, but before long it was just Raevu and myself there when Juaki re-equipped herself for her guard shift and went back out into the soggy passageway. With her gone and it just being the two of us, I offered the opportunity to recline in the hobby room while I did a little practice magic. Against my expectations Raevu was eager to see this and practically dove into the couch with a grin on her face despite me telling her that it would take me a few minutes to get the ink of the typewriter filled up. I just let out a little huff of air and shook my head at her even though I secretly thought it was adorable that she was as much of a nerd for magic as I was.

With the typewriter set up and a new passage on scanner runes ready, I began my tests by retrieving the eye drone and scanning its internal structure once more to see how it worked. Obviously the specific abilities of the drone such as flight and supposed invisibility were provided by the enchantments, but the physical device inside was a meticulously constructed rune array that looked identical to the kind I had dave for some internal components being in different places. Crafting a sketch of these components on a spare sheet of parchment alongside the kind of organic rune I had constructed showed me that my own runes were perhaps more streamlined and required less of the lenses the drone had, but were unable to provide visual information like it could. Actually, how would a physical eye rune even work if I formed it inside of my own body? There was only one way to find out, and that is just what I did inside of my left palm.

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Through the limiter runes and the sensor rune I got this feeling that I would be able to sense whatever the rune was seeing better if I had my own eyes closed, and following this vague sense of direction I waved my hand around before me until I could sense something different. I opened my eyes only to find that the palm of my hand was now facing one of the light stones embedded in the wall. Alright, so it could detect light, but how come it wasn’t letting me see like an eye could? Let’s try moving it closer to the surface of my hand and see if that works.

The change in depth really made a difference, and when I closed my eyes again I was able to make out rough shapes through what must be the skin of the palm of my hand. Looks like I won’t be able to peek around corners with my hands like that, but at least I know how that works and I have confirmation that I won’t see my insides if I put that elsewhere. I made a note of this limitation on the typewriter, and from the corner of my eye I could see the giddy expression of Raevu’s face fading as she got somewhat bored. Maybe a few low power thunder runes along my back running out of my spines will entertain her. I flexed to extend my rear mounted spikes and allowed some of the electrical runes to form, and in an instant a small lightshow of electrical arcs began to light up the room and my friend’s face. I chuckled at the wide eyed stare she gave me, then went back to my note taking as I left the runes running for her to watch.

I tapped at my chin and pondered over something I’d written down in some older notes in regards to another limit of the runes: physical information. I could tell where magic was, how much there was, and what type it came in, but anything pertaining to material composition was purely speculative and relied on things I already knew about the object. The drone was only able to see physical things in front of it, and even though I was piloting it I couldn’t see anyone’s magic or sense anything beyond sight. There must be some third kind of scanner piece out there that can ping materials to determine their characteristics without touching them, and learn the properties of things like my magic scanner could. The question now was where I could find something like that.

Then an idea crossed my mind, and from one of the piles of pages I’d filled came the book I had borrowed from the workshop. This book had many different runes that directly affected things in physical ways, so perhaps I might be able to find some kind of theme in these runes in order to upgrade my scanner once more. I flipped through the pages and made a note of the shape of all of the various runes I saw: spin runes, flip runes, pull and push runes, heating and cooling runes too. Every one of them was different in their functionality, but were all somehow of the same family of runes due to their ability to move solid matter. Actually, the filter rune also seemed to fit in with their design, and in fact looked as though it should have a page here in this book. But why wasn’t it, and what was the similarity of these runes?

Then it clicked as I drew all of them in a row: straight lines on their outer edge. All of them had a kind of square or rectangular frame that held them in place, and when the mana flowed it came to the frame first and worked to iron out the mana current before it came into the rune. Perhaps this frame is what allowed them to make the mana touch the object it was carved into, rather than just flowing through it like it would for a rounder elemental rune. If this is true, then perhaps my idea of breaking runes down and fitting smaller parts can come into play once more by having a fully formed scanner rune set alongside a useless square frame beside it. I prepared the runes and opened up my mana lines leading there, and the moment the energy touched the two runed they magnetized to one another in a flash. The square rune was shrunk down and pulled into the sensor until it was without the spherical cage of the sensor, then was split in two as one formed around the inner core of the rune and the other took position around the largest of the lens portions.

I’d learned my lesson before when it came to putting my intent into runes, and since my intent for this experiment was just to see them fuse it was time to make another one of the same shape that would tell me exactly what it was seeing. The new rune formed in the palm of my right hand as I hovered it over the typewriter, then when it was complete it began to broadcast information into my head in the form of a massive pillar of words and numbers. Okay, maybe asking for ‘everything’ was a bit too much, so how about you just tell me what it is I’m touching and all of the details of that item I’d want to know. I placed a finger on the machine, and in reply I got a blip in my mind of the information on the typewriter.

Silver Typewriter (Old Pteronian)

Rune Assembly: Everflowing Ink, Warming Rune, Tarnish Prevention

Weight: 19 Pounds

Condition: Good

The information stopped there, but a distinct sense that it had more to share lingered in the back of my mind. I pumped my fist in victory, as this was the first time it told me something I really had no way of measuring. I didn’t know that there was an anti-tarnish rune on it or that there was a rune for that at all, or how heavy this thing was when I carried it home. I gleefully began tapping at different things on my desk in order to see if it applied to everything I owned, and sure enough it really was able to determine physical properties! This was great for a number of reasons, but the real test was if it could tell me exact compositions of things I had. I placed my hand on the machine once more and asked the rune to tell me how pure the silver of the typewriter was, and in a flash I knew that it was 93% pure for the outer layer, with no silver within the internal mechanisms.

A diabolical grin stretched across my face as I realized that this was exactly what I needed for making high quality alloys, and for testing the strength of my refining rune. If my refinement of ores could truly give me 100% pure ores, then it was possible for me to make alloys of exact purities rather than just guessing and hoping my math was right. My hand drifted towards my hammer to check and see if I’d done my math right, but a part of me didn’t want to since there was a good chance that my math was outright wrong. I’ll just pretend that it’s fine for now and focus on something else. Speaking of focus, I’d let my thunder runes run for long enough and was starting to feel kinda tingly along my back from the excessive voltage I was putting there.

I shut off the runes and turned to face Raevu, who had seemingly drifted off into a nap while I was busy. I smiled and crept quietly over to her so I could cover her up before going back over to the typewriter to make a note of my new discovery. Now there were new question in my mind, such as why square runes were able to interact with solid matter and circular ones were not, and how was my sensor rune able to make use of both, but my primary focus was on the possibility of the upgraded sensor rune being able to be pushed even further. I could identify unknown metals, catalog those mana saturated metals I’d accidentally made in the workshop, and even identify unknown things just by laying a finger on them.

Wait, if I only had to lay a finger on them, then did that mean that I’d just scanned everything I had touched? This inquiry to my sensor rune somehow came with an affirmative response in the form of a pile of scanned information from everything I’d laid hands upon, from the stool I sat upon to the leather pack on my hip, to the fur pelts and even Raevu herself when my finger accidentally touched her shoulder. The sudden influx of information dulled my senses as I cradled my aching head, and in an act of retaliation I erased the sensor rune along with the information it had gathered. Bad runes, no scanning things without permission. Well if there was any take away from that, it was that my scanning powers were pretty decent and seemed to be limited only by how I deigned to use them. Neat.