The manner by which ‘natural’ undead are formed is poorly understood. While great tragedy or innumerable numbers of death are stereotypical situations in which undead are formed, this does not explain the occasional lone skeleton or ghoul that may raise from a long-abandoned cemetery. Separate from any controlling necromancer, these undead, often alone instead of the more commonly seen horde of undead, have somehow come by some form of animus. While it is, albeit only vaguely, understood that an area that has experienced significant emotional malaise may give rise to undead (battlefields and plague-stricken towns being two examples), there is no such indication that this mechanism is what gives rise to lone undead. Is it simply due to the character or spirit of the former person somehow making the body more susceptible to undeath after it is vacated by its natural soul? Perhaps there is some greater force; a sentient, perhaps malevolent, animus that occasionally manages to pry its way into forgotten graves and exploits the bodies of travelers that fatally lost their way. The relative danger of such lone undead being relatively insignificant compared to the many other dangers of the world, I doubt much research to be leveraged upon such an interesting topic.
-The Variations and Formation of Natural Undead, by Yeffen Duliah
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“I was gonna do the rune work for you anyway,” Xander said. “After all, you’ve given me some lessons on mana batteries already, so it’s only fair. But if it also gets me more kisses… well, I’ll rune up whatever you want! Speaking of, what exactly do you want me to rune up?”
“Ah, well, I’m not exactly an expert on runes, so I can really only ask you what kind of effect I’m looking for and hope that it’s something you can achieve. But I was hoping we could start with two things. A gear that will spin on its own, and a crossbow that will throw a bolt harder – and therefore farther.”
“Mm,” Xander grunted in thought. “The gear is easy, just give me one and I can engrave it with a mana gathering array and a movement rune. For the crossbow… let’s see. I can think of two ways to go about it. One is a bolt that would add extra force and acceleration when it’s fired. So it would be disposable, since you might not be able to recover the bolt once it’s fired. I could maybe rune the arms of the crossbow to increase the force delivers when the trigger is pulled? I’ve never done that before, but I imagine it would be similar to the array I have one my mace that increases the force behind a swing.”
Valteria thought over the two options for a short time. “I think a runed crossbow would sell better than a single shot bolt. Not that the bolt is a bad idea, mind you,” she said. “I just don’t really sell crossbow bolts. You can get better ones than anything I could make from a [Fletcher].”
“Ah, that makes sense,” Xander said with a nod. “Let’s do the cog first, and then we can work on the crossbow. Have you already got a gear I can engrave?”
“Mmhm,” Valteria agreed. “Let me find one.” She moved over to one of the workbenches – this one was positively littered with gears, cogs, and what looked to be partially assembled clocks or clockwork devices – and searched for a moment before picking one out. “Can you do it on this one?” She asked.
Xander looked down at the roughly thumb sized gear. [Miniaturization] was going to come in handy today. “I ought to be able to,” he told her. “Hand it here and let’s see.”
Holding the gear carefully in his hand, Xander looked closely at it as he carefully used his skills to engrave a mana gathering array and then a single movement rune on one side, connecting the two with a short line, which he now realized was very similar to a mana conduit. He could feel the gear struggling to turn in his grip now that the array was active. “You might want to put it in a box or hang it some way,” he said, still holding on tightly to the gear. “Otherwise it might spin itself off the workbench and get lost,” he explained.
“So it worked?” Valteria said, curiously looking at the small cog in Xander’s hand.
“Oh yeah, I can feel it trying to spin, I’m just holding it in place right now.”
“Perfect!” Valteria said excitedly. “Here, let me get a piece of string to hang it from.” Valteria moved to a different workbench – Xander was realizing that she seemed to know where everything was despite the chaos of the room – and rifled through a drawer before pulling out some string. “Aha!” She exclaimed as she held up the length of thread. Valteria walked back over to Xander, who carefully held the cog between his thumb and forefinger, and threaded the string though the small hole in the center of the gear. Once she had hold of both ends of the thread, Xander let go of the gear and they both watched with interest and the piece of metal began to spin on its own. “Oh, I’m going to make such a good clock with this,” Valteria enthused. “Let me just tie this here…” she said absently as she moved to the workbench covered in clock parts and tied the piece of string so that it was stretched between two points – the two points being a small hammer and a spanner. “There, that ought to hold it,” She commented, watching the gear spin vainly on the table, pulling the string taut. “Now let’s get to that crossbow!” She said excitedly.
“Do you have one already finished?” Xander asked. He noticed what looked to be a few crossbows hanging on the wall near the station he’d seen Jarrett working yesterday.
“Of course, silly!” She chided him. “I already told you that I sell crossbows, it wouldn’t do to only have half finished ones lying around if a customer walked in.”
As if summoned, a customer chose that moment to walk in, knocking briefly before letting themselves into the shop.
Valteria straightened her back and called out, “Welcome to Valteria’s Mechanics and Sundries! Is there anything I can help you find?”
The customer, who had come in carrying a small bundle under one arm, paused at being hailed. “Ah, uhm, yes. I was told you’re good with clocks?” He asked.
“I am,” Valteria said. “I build my own to sell, as well as repair work.”
The woman, dressed in plain but well made clothes, took the bundle in her hands and unwrapped it, revealing a clock. On closer inspection, however, Xander realized that it was more the remains of a clock. It was clearly broken, and there were loose cogs that had been gathered and placed in the bundle. “It got knocked off the mantle,” she explained sadly. “It was my grandfather’s, and I can’t bear the thought of just throwing it away.” She looked at Valteria hopefully. “Can you fix it?”
“Well, let’s see,” Valteria said. “Come lay everything down on the bench here,” she gestured towards a workbench that was relatively free of clutter, “and I’ll take a look.”
Xander did his best to keep out of the way, looking over the crossbows hanging on the wall as Valteria examined the clock. In only a short time, the small woman had determined that the winding mechanism had come apart, and that the arms needed to be fixed, both of which were things she was capable of remedying. The woman who’d brought the broken clock in thanked her profusely, promising to pay whatever price she wanted for the heirloom clock. She clearly cared deeply for the sentimental value of the thing. Once she and Valteria had settled on a price, Valteria took down the woman’s name in her notebook and told her to come back in about a week.
“Thank you again,” the customer told Valteria as they exited the shop. “The mantle feels so bare without it.”
Valteria let her customer service posture slip away, standing more comfortably now that she and Xander were alone in the shop again.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Xander commented.
“No, it wasn’t,” Valteria agreed. “I wonder who she heard of me from. I had one man who was much less tactful that told me he ‘heard that the little folks were good with clocks’ when he came in.” She huffed. “Just because I’m little doesn’t mean I’m good with clocks, I’m good with clocks because I’m a [Tinker]!”
“Having small hands doesn’t help at least a little?” Xander teased.
“Hush, you!” Valtera said with a glare. “… But yes, having small hands does help. Now let’s look at that crossbow.”
“This one you want me to do?” Xander asked, holding up the crossbow he’d been looking over.
“Sure, that one’s good enough.”
“Alrighty, let’s get to it, then.” Xander placed the crossbow on the workbench and inspected it one more time as Valteria brought a stool over to sit next to him. It had a wooden body with steel arms, and a crank powered winch to pull back the braided bowstring and arms. “Right then,” Xander said, leaning over the crossbow. He experimentally pulled the string back, watching how the arms flexed. He gave the string a firmer pull, all the way back this time, still watching the arms of the crossbow.
Valteria interrupted his testing by exclaiming, “You can just pull the arms back like that?” In disbelief.
“Mm?” Xander asked, confused for a moment before realizing that it wasn’t normal to be able to do that without some kind of strength enhancement. “Oh, yeah. I can exert a lot of force with this body. You saw me manhandle your armor around. Though I might have been able to do this even before. My class gave me a strength increase that scaled with level.”
“So… you’ve just been really careful with me?” She asked.
“Essentially, yeah.” Xander said nonchalantly.
Xander watched as it dawned on Valteria that he could pick her up and snap her in half if he so desired. “Wow…” She finally let out.
“That… doesn’t make you uncomfortable, does it?” He asked, concerned.
“Oh, no, no, don’t worry,” Valteria said quickly. “I just… hadn’t really realized how strong you really were. Which is silly, I know. We literally fought in an arena. I don’t know why it didn’t hit me until now.”
“Well, I promise to make sure to keep being ‘really careful’ with you,” Xander said. “Unless you ask me not to,” he said in a flirtatious tone.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Oh gods, I don’t know if I could handle anything even approaching roughness from you after what I’ve seen,” Valteria said. “And stop teasing me so much!”
“Fine, fine, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It just love flustering you, it’s so cute seeing you blush.”
Valteria huffed. “Get to runing before a smack you!” She said, blushing.
“Alright, alright!” Xander held his hands up defensively to ward off any potential smacks. Getting back to work, he considered what he’d seen of the crossbow. He needed to increase the force with which they snapped back into their resting position after the trigger was pulled. So an array that detected movement forwards and applied the momentum enhancing array should work. He’d need to apply it to both arms. Placing his hands on the crossbow arms, he began engraving the runes required for the task. Intelligence runes to detect the movement and allow mana to pass into the array that would enhance the momentum of the arms, and, of course, the mana gathering arrays themselves that would power the entire circuit. Vateria watched with interest as the runes appeared on the surface of the arms, one after another, connected to each other with a spidery web of engravings.
“It’s so beautiful to watch,” Valteria said softly.
Xander grinned at her comment as he finished the first arm. “It is satisfying to watch it all appear on the steel, isn’t it?”
The second arm went just as smoothly, as Xander engraved an identical series of runes on it. Taking his hands off the crossbow, he conjured a bolt of wood with a steel head. “Wanna test it out?” He asked, expectantly.
“Of course I do!” Valteria responded excitedly. She paused. “But, I don’t have any targets… and there’s houses all around.”
“Ahh, you’re right. I guess I got a bit ahead of myself,” Xander said, guiltily. “Maybe we can go to the guild training area before we go to dinner?”
“Mm, that would work. Yes. Yes, let’s go to the training yard at the end of the day,” Valteria said thoughtfully.
“Soooo… now what?” Xander asked. “What do you normally do between customers?”
“Mm, normally I just tinker away. Work on any personal projects I have going on, or any orders I need to fill. I’ll probably start work on the clock that lady brought in – I haven’t got much else to do. Why don’t you try fiddling with that mana battery you made and see if you can work out something to attach it to? Just ask me any questions you have. I can work and talk. Though, considering you were so kind as to bring me a golem, I will probably be circling it and taking notes for a bit.” Valteria made her way to Atlas and pulled out her sketchbook. “That skill based one you made is a mess! Half the gears don’t even connect to anything, it just looks like it’s clockwork.”
“Okay, that sounds fine to me. Uhm, what kind of things can I make that lightning mana will work with?”
“Ah, right, I suppose you’re not all that familiar with mana types. Mana that is attuned to a type wants to express itself as the element that it is in line with. So lightning mana becomes lightning, fire mana becomes flames – or sometimes just heat, water mana into water, you get the gist. So what you want to do is create a device that can use the natural expression of that mana to its advantage.”
“I see. I guess I need to go to the drawing board then.” Xander stayed at the workbench where the crossbows were worked on, as it was mostly free of clutter. The mana would be expressed as lightning? That was just electricity, and there was so much that could be done with electricity. But what should he make? And more importantly, what did he have the functional knowledge to actually be able to make? He know how a DC motor worked, maybe he could make something that spins. And judging by the weakness of the core, he doubted that it would be capable of throwing actual bolts of lightning around. Static shocks seemed to be the limit of its power. So a small DC motor would probably work fine. Did he have magnets? He thought back to all the items he’d analyzed, going so far as to dig deeper into his status and pull up the list that [Analyze] provided. Aha! There it was, the flashlight with a magnetic base. He had everything he’d need to make a dc motor that would power a small fan blade. Completely useless to him, but perhaps something Valteria would enjoy.
While Valteria busied herself with studying Atlas, meticulously sketching out joints and postures, Xander conjured himself a piece of paper and a pencil and began to sketch out how he’d create his little handheld fan. He ended up settling on a simple design. The mana battery, which he’d be using just like a nonmagical battery, along with the wiring – conduit, he corrected himself – would sit in a steel tube that would serve as the hand hold. The conduit would run up to where he’d be mounting the DC motor and its housing on top of the tube. The DC motor itself was comprised of loops of wire creating a circuit with the battery that had a magnet on each side of it. If he remembered correctly, when power was run through the wire, it would make a magnetic field, which coupled with the magnets to each side, would cause a rotational force. Inserting a small rod into the hole he’d left in the housing – and adding a few smoothness runes to it to reduce friction – should cause the rod to spin. He’d just need to add fan blades to the rod and he’d have a fan that never stopped spinning.
Wait, it would never stop spinning. He needed to include an on/off switch. He was glad he’d thought of that before making the thing. He sketched out an idea for a simple toggle switch that would physically connect and disconnect the mana conduit in the handle. Now, he just needed to make the thing. Conjuring himself some steel with [Creation] he began to meld out the shapes he would need, adding mana gathering runes to the metal so that it wouldn’t disintegrate. He was so engrossed in his work that he hadn’t noticed that Valteria had taken a break from the clock to come watch, standing just slightly behind him as he molded the metal with his hands. He started slightly when she spoke up.
“What did you decide to make?” She asked, interestedly.
“Oh!” He exclaimed as he jumped a little. “Sorry, you startled me. Uhm, I was thinking I would make a little handheld fan for hot days. Not any use to me – I can’t get hot anymore – but I thought you might like it?”
“Awh, that’s sweet of you, Xander,” Valteria said, leaning into him slightly. Thoughtfully, she added, “But what does that have to do with lightning? I would have used an air aligned core and a vent for a fan, personally. You’ve got no filter material, so how are you getting wind from lightning?”
“Ah, so that’s a little complicated. But there’s a lot of physics that I don’t understand very well at all behind it. So the basest of explanations is, if you run a current – that’s lightning – through a coiled wire, it creates a magnetic field. In my world it was called an electromagnet. Because, well, it used electricity, which is - and I’m sure an engineer would be willing to hit me over this – artificially created and contained lightning. So electro, meaning coming from electricity, and magnet. So if you have this coiled wire that is acting as an electromagnet, and you surround it with two other magnets, you get a rotational force. Which I’ll be using to spin the fan blades that will create wind!” Xander explained proudly.
“That’s… How do you know this? I thought your world didn’t have magic!” She exclaimed. “How were you creating lightning?”
“So uh, another physics thing is if you instead rotate the coiled wire inside of the magnets, it creates electricity. I’m not really sure why. But it’s not magic, it’s all based on math and science and you don’t need a class to do it.”
“Gods… what I could with even just a few books from your world,” Valteria muttered.
“Sorry, math wasn’t really my forte, and wasn’t high on the list of things I was trying to bring with me.”
“No, no, I’m not blaming you,” She clarified. “It’s just, all the knowledge of a world that, because of the lack of magic, took a different path. And you’ve just given me a taste of it, of something that I’ve never even heard of before.”
“It wasn’t all flowers and enlightened knowledge,” Xander said, a little bitterly. “We were so heavily industrialized that we were beginning to destroy the environment. Do you know how much a billion is, Valteria?”
Valteria nodded, “Uhm, yes, it comes after million. Though I don’t know of many things that would add up to be billions. Bugs, maybe? Stars?”
“Well you know what comes after billions? Trillions. We regularly invested trillions of dollars – that’s the currency of my country – just on creating more effective and efficient war machines. We had bombs that would wipe this town off the face of the planet and sicken the land to boot. Huge vehicles and ships with no other purpose than to be platforms for guns and ordnance. No one really liked to talk about it, but with the metaphorical press of a button by someone up high in the government, not even our own government mind you, other countries had these kinds of weapons, too, life as we knew it could end. I think, in a lot of ways, despite the ‘lower’ level of technology I’ve seen here, life is more sustainable in the long run. Magic fills in a lot of the gaps that would lower people’s quality of life. Here, you can cure someone’s wounds in a single moment, even regrow someone’s limbs. That was impossible back home. Clean water, enough crops to feed the people, hell even something as ‘simple’ as street lamps can all be accomplished by magic. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of amenities that I miss. I’m sure you’ve heard Charles lament not having a TV anymore. Lots of little luxuries. The ability to speak with people on the other side of the country in an instant. I think there’s a happy medium that could be had, a melding of technology and magic. But all in all, what’s around right now isn’t so bad. I do wish that I had the knowledge to bring out more technology for those who wanted it, but it’s the kind of thing that takes years – decades, even – of learning in a single field of knowledge just to be able to understand a specific aspect of one device. Frankly, I’m just not that smart, and even though my [Intelligence] has increased, that’s just made me better at memorizing, remembering and processing information.” Xander realized that he’d gone on a little bit of a rant and cut himself off. Valteria has been listening patiently, with interest plain to see on her face.
Realizing that Xander wasn’t going to continue, Valteria said, “That does sound… stressful. I’m not sure I can fully understand it. But still, even after what you’ve told me, the things you showed me on your, uh, what did you call it?” She asked, searching for the unfamiliar word.
“Phone?” Xander suggested helpfully.
“Yes! On your phone. Giant buildings and cities, widespread use of vehicles that could move on their own, houses lit without flame or magic, so many of these things could bring improvements to life here on Tillania, too.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Xander agreed. “If you ever come across a contingent of engineers from multiple disciplines that have come from Earth, you let me know and I’ll be happy to fund their efforts,” he said with a chuckle. “The real issue is that there was such a build up of infrastructure required for all these things to work that it would be beyond massive to undertake. Not that I’m trying to discourage you!” He added quickly. “If you want to try and change the world, create something new, I am all for it.” He tacked on with a smirk, “Nothing’s more attractive than a woman who wants to improve the world.”
Valteria snorted at his antics. “You have a very odd sense of what is attractive, Xander.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he replied in a dramatic tone.
Valteria rolled her eyes. “If you say so.” Returning to the matter at hand, she asked, “Do you mind if I watch you assemble to pieces?”
“Sure, I don’t mind at all,” he told her.
Xander began to assemble all the separate pieces he’d created. Placing the mana battery in the tube, he connected it with silver wire to the toggle switch he’d placed in the tube body. Then he assembled the components for the motor in the housing he’d created and attached it to the toggle switch. Finally he inserted the rod and fan blades into the motor. The last thing to do was to seal everything up to make sure it didn’t come apart if it got dropped or that the fan blades would shoot themselves out of the motor. He held up the completed device and gave it a once over. Perhaps a cage over the fan blades wouldn’t be a bad idea, considering they were made of steel. He wasn’t sure how fast or with how much force the blades would be turning, but there was the potential for a nasty cut if one were to stick their finger in it. Valteria watched silently, doing her best not to disturb him. She didn’t realize that she was still leaning into Xander. Not that Xander minded. He was enjoying the closeness. Mentally shaking off his errant thoughts, he got back to the cage for the fan blades, which he made of steel wire, in a similar, though miniature, pattern to that of a traditional oscillating fan housing.
“There we go,” Xander said as he finished the last bit of wire on the cage. “Shall we see if it works?”
“Of course!” Valteria said, excited to see the final product in action. “You can’t just let me watch you put it all together without showing me the end result!”
Xander chuckled at her excitement, saying, “Alright, alright, here goes, then.” He flipped the toggle switch to the ‘on’ position and was gratified to see the fan begin to spin. The cage was probably not a necessary addition considering the rate at which it was spinning, but it was still enough to put out a cooling stream of air.
Valteria clapped, congratulating Xander. “Your very first mana battery powered device! Congratulations!”