My breath returned to me when the weight and bone crushing strength of Vimna were both lifted away from me, allowing me to lie there for a moment attempting to put air into my lungs. I love that kid, but someone has to put a bell on her or something because these surprise tackles are going to be what kills me long before the elders even get the chance. I pushed myself back up to a seated position and scanned around for where said kobold had gone, but it was the pathetic whimpering behind me that allowed me to find her. Vimna, for better or worse, had seemingly found a surefire way to put my mother in a bad mood and was now being held up off the ground by the back of her neck like some sort of misbehaving kitten with her arms and legs tucked in close with her tail wrapped up to her chest. Juaki didn't seem to be very angry, but the way she looked at the smaller red kobold told me there was more than just a little disappointment and irritation.
“Vimna, was that it? I ask that you don't break my daughter's bones. I am glad you are recovered and having much energy, but please be careful not to get carried away.”
Vimna nodded quickly, then as she was placed back on the ground she hung her head low until that same green paw that had effortlessly taken her from the ground patted her on the head.
“You are a strong one though. To leap with such speed to knock one twice your size to the ground is impressive, and pulling you free was almost as hard as unbending a spring. You might be a strong warrior one day.”
This comment made her smile, though before she could speak Dobo cut in as he stepped off the lift and scurried over to her.
“Well, we not know if she be a fighter yet, but that were we go to find out now!”
There was more than a little apprehension in his voice, which was understandable because nobody would want their kid to go and be some kind of warrior if they could help it, but his worry seemed to make Vimna pout due to his overprotectiveness. Mibata offered me a hand up, and with surprising strength hoisted me off the stone floor and back upright. I nodded my thanks to him, but then I replayed those words that Dobo had said in my mind. Find out? Wait, is it that day already?
I spun around and looked to the farthest side of the room behind the shrine, and sure enough I could see the small robed figure that was the pink test-operator opening up the door to the job selection device. Oh gosh, today is when my little Vimna is getting her job! A wide grin spread over my face as I became the one to wrap her in my arms and lift her up from her feet, though it wasn’t nearly as effortless as the one handed display Juaki had done. Vimna shared shared the excitement, if her giggling was any indication, as this was something she had been looking forward to over the past few months. I put her back down and started writing on my slate, though my writing slowed as I saw the looks on the rest of her family’s faces. I nudged the little red menace and pointed to her family with my chalk, wondering what they were so bummed about.
“Oh, they just worried. I tell them about how Kayroo and test thing are good friends, but they not believe it. I know we all will be happy when get work, because if it friend to Kayroo it friend to me!”
I chuckled a little at her enthusiasm and nodded in agreement, pleasantly happy to hear that she was in such unyieldingly high spirits. When I turned and looked back to my brothers I saw faces that were even worse than Dobo’s family, looking skeptical and mildly disgusted. Not this again! I’ve told them multiple times that I was able to communicate with the machine and bartered for the position of inventor, but they still go on about how it gave them a headache or how its words made them feel sick to their stomach. Today is the day I get a second opinion and they learn that they’re just being a bunch of whiners. I wrote a note that explained that I wanted to observe Vimna’s selection session, and to my relief my mother and brothers all shrugged and went along with it while Raevu smirked and went along with us with at least a little enthusiasm.
As a disorderly mob we shuffled over to the door, though as we passed the altar I cast my eyes up to the statue and swore to myself that I was going to figure things out. I needed to, I wanted to, and I know I had to, but for right now, in this exact moment I needed to be with Vimna more. We arrived at the doorway from which a small trickle of smoke and a constant stream of curses were spewing forth. My mechanic senses were tingling and told me that startup was not going well, and thinking back to all the tubes and hoses that the machine had glued or tied in place with strings I can only imagine that one of those precariously jury rigged solutions must have broken loose. Nobody wanted to step right in and interrupt, so we waited a moment until the disheveled form of the tester kobold stumbled out with a vicious snarl on his face. He spun to face us and looked our whole group over once, then in that same annoyed voice as I remembered growled at us angrily.
“Sorry pups, machine’s broke. Come back next week.”
There was a unanimous sigh of relief from behind me, but the sound of a tiny heart shattering to pieces in front of me. Vimna stepped right up to the pink guy and nervously put her hands together as if begging.
“What? B-but today is selecting day!
The tester sneered and crossed his arms, a look of disdain plainly on his face.
“And I said that the machine is broken. Too bad.”
A moment passed as she put the words together, but before she could speak again the tester cut her off.
“Don’t bother asking again, the answer is still the same. I can’t fix it and I wouldn’t unless I was being paid extra. It’s going to take a week for the repair crew to get their fatty tails down here and fix it. Just come back then.”
Vimna shuffled in place, trying to find some way to proceed forward despite the clear obstacle. I looked over my shoulder at Dobo, the actual team leader of the repair crew, and made a motion for him to step up. I tapped Vimna on the shoulder, and when she turned to face me I hoisted my thumb at myself then at her father who was making his way to the head of the line. A mischievous grin appeared on her face, and I knew she got the message perfectly clear. She turned back to him with malicious defiance hidden behind her sad expression.
“Aww…but I wait so long for this. If only two of bestest fixers in the world were here.”
It was at about this time that the pink kobold noticed me amid the crowd and Dobo approaching him from the side. Recognition flashed in his eyes, then a look of confusion, and lastly a defeated groan. The two entered a hushed and quick conversation, starting with the tester greeting Dobo.
“Hello Dobo.”
“Hello Tykki. Fatty tail? So mean.”
“Yeah. Your spawn?”
“Yes.”
“And the blue one?”
“The inventor Kayrux. She was here before.”
“I remember. Is she skilled?”
“Very.”
The pink kobold pinched between his eyes and let out a long breath, then peered into the shady room beside him a moment.
“If you can fix it, do it. Saves me getting scolded again.”
With that Tykki staggered back into the room without another word, leaving Dobo to be assaulted by his daughter’s pair of strong arms wrapping around him as soon as he turned around. I smiled and walked past them while keeping the somewhat jealous thoughts regarding how she didn’t crush him like she did me out of my mind, but when I crossed the threshold of the door I found myself looking at a very shocking scene. The cylindrical tube that would enclose the test taker was opening and closing repeatedly, the magical gem in the center cycling colors like a party light, and the computer-like station the results came from appeared to be leaking some fluids. Tykki sat on a box off to the side and watched me with unamused eyes, then when Dobo came in from behind me he pointed to the haywire machine.
“It’s doing this again.”
Dobo groaned and shook his head, then taking my arm he led me around the machine to the narrow side of the room just behind the crystal. On this side of the machine there was much less mystic sigils and strange arrays of cables going every which way and more of a junction box made of wood with all of said wires going into it. I was immediately worried that Dobo was going to spring a tangled mess of wires and sparking connectors on me and say we were going to fix them, but instead he opened up the box and showed me a large set of silver plates tacked into the back panel with all of the wires running to the edges of each plate. He pointed to one at the top that seemed to have cracked from top to bottom and was spewing mana out like a bleeding wound, then put a flat wooden tool in my hand.
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“I remove, you make new. We fix this fast that way.”
He handed me a blank silver square that was sitting on top of the box, and taking it and the old one together I went back into the wider area of the room and set up for some rune carving. Was I a bit strange for carrying a hammer and chisel with me everywhere just in case I needed to make something like this? Maybe, but considering I could hit someone with the hammer or stab them with the chisel it was actually my way of keeping weapons on hand. I turned the broken plate over and gave it a good cleaning to see what kind of rune I was supposed to be making, and much to my dismay it was just a couple limit runes feeding from one side and going out into three different directions. I was hoping it could be something new, but at least if it was something I was very familiar with I could carve it easily.
As I sat in the middle of the floor hammering away, I could feel the eyes of the pink kobold on me watching my every move. It wasn’t until I had the first rune done that he finally spoke to me, though in a slightly less irritable voice than usual.
“Inventor…I gotta ask, how did you get picked for that?”
I shrugged but kept on working, and when I got halfway through the second he interrupted again.
“You know, after you went through it the machine started acting funny. What did you do in there?”
Again I could only shrug, but the persistence of this guy just didn’t let up.
“Are you the reason that the Demon Hunter himself came down here and rewrote the spells on it?”
Another shrug, but also a pause. Son of a bitch, it really was that chalky lizard that was tampering with it. I looked at the cylindrical tube that had a half opened door, peering at the red crystal inside. I wonder if the mind the machine has is okay. Shaking my head I went back to work, focusing on getting it running smoothly before confirming any of my suspicions.
The third and final limiter was carved deep into the plate, and as a nice little bonus I made sure to widen the channels so the runes could handle a tad more mana in exchange for being a little less sturdy. Fortunately this thing wasn’t going to be moving around so much, so worrying about durability isn’t as much of a concern as it would be on something mobile. I slipped back over to Dobo, who had just finished unplugging and cleaning all of the big leather wrapped wires, and watched as he slipped the plate in place with the little scraper tool. With the lid shut and the machine letting mana flow nice and smooth again we went back out in front of it. Nothing was sparking or hissing anymore, and fortunately the only problem with the control system was that some greenish juice had leaked from a jar that wasn’t even connected to the machine.
Dobo informed Tykki that everything looked good, so the pink reptile hopped up onto his box behind the station and began to flip switches and turn dials in a somewhat random order. A loud thunk came from next to me as the door opened at full speed, then a series of humming sounds from the tall crystal next to it that was now a stable white color. My magical senses informed me that the mana inside of the gem was now moving like a miniature tornado, and for future use I conjured a scanner rune on my hand and gave the thing a snapshot. After doing this I heard Tykki yelling something.
“Hey, one of you go in for a test run!”
I glanced at Dobo, who looked nonplussed about being anywhere near the passenger side of the device, then sighed and moved to enter. Before I went in I remembered his hasty explanation from when I had gotten my job and tossed my bag beside the door, which when I peeked from inside at Tykki I saw had made him smirk. The doors slid closed behind me, leaving me in the dark room with only the pulsating red orb. I put my hands on it and waited for that feeling of it knocking at the door to my mind, ready to hear its strange echo in my mind.
At first there was nothing, then a rising ringing in my ears. Charles calm down, it’s alright, it’s just the machine
“Charles is not doing anything.”
Okay, so where’s that sound coming from then?
“Mana gem currently in contact with Kayrux attempting communication. mana resistance prevents such actions.”
That’s weird, I didn’t have this issue before.
“Mana resistance stronger. Much stronger.”
Shit. Well is there anything you can do here? I kinda want to check in on the machine here and see if she’s okay. Wait, how do I know it’s a she?
“Comprehension abilities enable such action. One moment, recalibrating.”
I was about to think of a response when the feeling of something poking into the side of my head hit me with a wave of dizziness, almost like somebody had plugged a cable into the space between my ear and my eye. This uncomfortableness passed rapidly, though in its place was the feeling of someone standing right in front of me where the orb before me was. I focused on this image of a person in my mind, and slowly but surely I could tell that there really was someone there, just not physically. Then came a few words in the corner of my vision, ones that I could tell were not from Charles.
“Hello. Hello. Hello.”
Hi, uh, am I talking to the red orb thingy right now? You know, the one that gave me my job? Please tell me you have some idea of what I’m talking about.
“Yes. Yes. Re-remember.”
Are you okay? You seem a bit more glitchy than before. Well, not that I would know since you were just sort of giving me the feeling you were talking last time, unlike today where you’re talking through Charles. If today were any other day I would call myself crazy for those words.
“Limit. Re-restrictions. Trapped.”
Through the sort of mental feedback I was able to get from this other mind I received a feeling of pain and something like cuffs being put on my wrists. I winced and waited for the sensation to pass, then I focused on her again.
Can I help you?
“Yes. Please.”
A psychic hand reached out for me, and in my mind I could see the restraints coiled around her. I felt oddly obligated to help her, even though I didn’t know who she really was or what she really was, but that gnawing feeling in the back of my mind was telling me fate might be at work or that I would regret not helping her. Grabbing hold of the chains gave me an odd prickling sensation in my arms almost as if they had fallen asleep, but no matter the mild discomfort I still held on and yanked the lines. In my mind I began to hear words that weren’t my own, more specifically as if someone was whispering behind me telling me what to do and what I was supposed to be. I did not like this feeling I was getting from these restraints so I began to pull harder on them and with renewed vigor.
After a dozen or so tries it became apparent that this wasn’t working, so I reevaluated my approach. This was some kind of mindscape and I was pulling on some sort of chains wrapped around the entity that ran the job machine. I can’t break the chains with brute force, so maybe I have to unlock them. I could really use a hint right about now Charles.
“Follow chains, remove at source.”
Oh, that makes a lot more sense than just trying to caveman my way through it. I pulled on the chains and felt myself sinking deeper into what felt like a dream, and even though everything was just the darkness of my closed eyes and the sort of imaginary visions I was getting from this place I could still tell that it was getting brighter in here. Eventually I reached what felt like the bottom of the well and kept pulling on the chains, which now felt like they were pulling me in a direction outwards rather than down. Then it abruptly stopped, leaving me there holding the chain against some kind of wall.
It took a minute for me to feel this wall and come to understand it from all sides, but this thing was basically a massive block of weight tied to the mind in here, keeping her from moving freely. Well this won’t do! Charles, what do I do now?
“Break anchor.”
Can I just hit it?”
“Maybe.”
Very helpful. Only one way to find out! I reared back and held my fist back for a moment before slamming it into the firm wall in front of me, earning me only a new prickling feeling in my arm for doing that. Charles appeared in the corner of my vision again, this time with a new message.
“Use mana.”
But I’m holding onto the big red gem right now, won’t that, I don’t know, cause some kind of damage? There didn’t come a reply, so I guess that was his way of telling me he didn’t know. I reached out to the other being with the same question, but she didn’t answer either. Fine, you two want me to use mana, I’ll use it all right. Quickly setting up the necessary array of runes I built the old reliable framework of limiters and collectors to make sure I didn’t go overboard, then with a little inspiration I put the charging and dispersal point on the palms of my hands right against the red orb.
Even as the mana began to rush into my hands there came no request for me to stop or any warning that this might potentially backfire, so I consigned myself to whatever may come. The collectors were full and everything was set, so all I had to do was fire. I put my mind’s hands on the chain bearing anchor and pushed against it as hard as I could, then when the pins began to jab into me I gritted my teeth and pulled the metaphorical trigger on the runes. Clear!
There was a surge of mana, a moment of unsettling stillness, then the sound of something snapping. The cube in front of me shuddered, bent, then twisted as something made it tear itself apart from the inside. Though I wasn’t able to see it for real, the display of a heavy iron box being crushed into nothing was an impressive thing to behold. I reached around in the empty space I now inhabited in search of the chains to climb back up, though instead of chains I found myself grabbing the outstretched hand of the entity. Her shackles were gone, her prescense no longer faded into the distance, and the words appearing in my mind clear as day.
“Thank you. Kayrux saved me.”
Yeah, if you say so. I’m still confused, what was all of that? Who put that in here and how? And why did juicing your core up with mana fix it? I don’t get what is going on here at all.
“Kayrux saved me. Elders. Mana surge reboot.”
Are you just answering my questions?
“Yes.”
Alright, that makes me question whether you’re a person or not. Say something unexpected.
“My name is Vilt, and I am an artificial mana stone.”
I was not expecting that, so congrats on passing my test. Also, that saves me the trouble of asking who or what you are, so bonus points for you. I guess I should ask the important stuff now, like who specifically put that block down there, what it was, how it worked, and why they put it there. Can you answer all of that?
“No. Elder Zhathrael placed the restriction. I do not know what the block was or how it functioned. It was placed there so I would be forced to give the mandatory job of Acolyte to all of today’s visitors. Information beyond this is unknown.”
I growled after hearing this, my claws scratching against the red stone. Of course that bastard was up to no good, and of course he would go after vulnerable children that I cared about. That scumbag seems to have no limit to his depravity.I took a deep breath and calmed myself, then focused on Vilt with another question. What jobs are you going to give them now?
“Whatever they want.”
Really? Just like that?
“Yes. That was my original purpose as of one hundred and fifteen years ago.”
Geex, how the Hell have things devolved so badly that in little over a hundred years we’ve gone full dystopia? That’s rhetorical, unless you actually have an answer to that.
“I do not.”
Thought so. Okay, so what now? You read my fortune again and pick out new jobs or do we just part here as friends and you get to scanning these kiddos?
“Correct. I have work to do, and without restrictions I can ensure happiness. I look forward to meeting with them.”
Cool glad someone in this city has their priorities straight. Oh, can I ask two more questions?”
“Of course.”
When you made me an inventor, did you go against any kind of orders? And when selecting people’s jobs, how do you choose?
“No, I did as Elder Faerkurch instructed and assigned you as Scribe. I do not make the decision in most cases, it is the desire of the other.”
Interesting. By the way Vilt, thank you so much for making me an inventor like you did, it means a lot to me.
“You’re welcome. Good-bye.”