It's about an hour before noon, and I'm just finishing up the finalized engine for the car. I went with a V12 for a smooth ride, and high torque. Instead of using fuel, or making explosions with magic. It's setup to vaporize and condense water in a closed system. So, there's no valves, no intake or exhaust, and, since it's recycling the energy by absorbing and redirecting the heat, instead of using more Mana to cool the water. The engine actually gets over eighty percent efficiency.
"You built that faster than I thought." Apricot comes flying up having just finished watching Hook again. This time on a prototype movie player I whipped together last night after returning from Marta's.
"Yeah, may not have worked on it yesterday, but that doesn't mean I wasn't thinking about it." I say giving it one last check. "How was the player? Any issues?"
"None! It worked perfectly. Thank you." She gives me a peck on the cheek. "How's Amelia doing? She still absorbed with those sphere's you made for her?"
"Yeah, she's still focused on the Helium, think she's trying to separate the isotropes." I 'look' over to where Amelia's playing with the trace gasses I condensed and trapped in metal for her, and pick up something on the periphery of my senses. "You want to go snap her out of it? Looks like we're gonna have guests."
"Anything... if you promise to make me a few more of those cubes." She bounces away with a spring in her step after giving me a kiss, on the mouth this time.
I just smile and lick her taste from my lips before calling out to our visitors. "Devlin, Deluca, we're back here. Who's your friend?" I get a good look at him under my Magical sight, and he seems weird. Like there's more Mana in him than there should be, but he's not an Awakened, or even a potential.
"Sorrel, good to see you again." The Earth Mage shakes my hand. "This is Jamie, he's a friend of my nephew." Devlen doesn't seem too happy to be introducing him.
"Lord Rumex, it's an honor to meet you." He pumps my hand up and down like a politician during an election year. "Devlen was kind enough to bring me with him today-"
"More like you pestered me until I gave in." Devlen interrupts him with a chuckle. "Young mister Hutchinson claims to have received an inheritance from his grandfather that lets him use Mana despite not being an Awakened. We at the guild haven't been able to sense anything, but he's hoping that you can."
"Interesting." I stroke my chin. "Can I see this inheritance?"
"Of course!" The exuberant young man reverently retrieves a scroll case from his satchel. "Grandfather left a letter along with this scroll saying that he got this when he was overseas. And, that by following the forms outlined within, one could develop an inner power."
I open the case to find a yellowed parchment. Carefully unfurling the scroll reveals a line of characters that Polyglot doesn't translate. And beneath that, a series of drawings that look like a mix between a martial-arts kata and dance instructions. With looping arrows on some poses to indicate when the performer should breathe in and out.
"Hmm?" I muse to myself. "Hey, Apricot? Ever seen anything like this? I flick my eyes between the scroll and Jamie."
"Well, that's different." She shrinks down to fly closer to the scroll. "You've been practicing these forms?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Madam pixie, Countess." He gets flustered.
"Care to demonstrate for us?" I say with a raised eyebrow.
"Of course, Milord." He immediately steps into the first form.
"Your leg is too far forward." Apricot corrects him. We can both see that just the first breathe he took had an effect. "No, you need to wait an extra heartbeat or three before exhaling there." His forms starts slipping worse and worse. "Stop, stop. Please, just stop now."
"What's going on babe?" Amelia asks me.
"Jamie's grandfather left some sort of inner power cultivation manual to him. And although his form is atrocious -Sorry, no offense meant- it actually works." I pass the scroll back before giving myself enough room to attempt the katas. I step into the first form, and start drawing in a breath.
"Stop!" Apricot warns but I've already sensed the instability and moved out of the form. "It's reacting to your mana pool, I'm not sure mages can do this."
"Slippery little bugger, huh?" I stroke my chin for a minute before tilting my head and raising an eyebrow with a sly smile on my lips. Retrieving my Livingwood staff from my inventory, I give it a twirl before slamming the butt into the ground. "Domain!" I cast and take control of all the mana in a sphere around me.
"That might work." Apricot nods. "But, be careful."
"What the hell is that?" Looks like Devlen is losing his cool again.
"It's called Mana Control for a reason." I say off-handedly as I step back into the first position. "Ah, much better." I dance through the routine, speeding up and slowing down, seemingly at random. But, I'm just following the flow of the Mana as it joins with my body. Nearing the last form, I can feel a pressure building up around my right fist. I finish by stepping into a horse stance and throwing a punch towards a nearby tree.
*Ding*
You have learned the Dance of the Cyclone's Fist Cultivation Technique.
The notification pops up at the same time the pressure flows off of my fist and slams into the tree, knocking it and the pot it's in over flat.
"Dance of the Cyclone's Fist, huh? Status. Hmm, an air based attack, very minor gains to all stats, but mostly physical, can be repeated but with dimishing returns." I throw out another attack without doing the dance first. The technique is elementally aligned, but also feels incomplete... Deluca, do you have Mana Control, yet?"
"What, you mean it actually works?" Devlen interrupts just as Deluca opens her mouth to reply.
"Yes. It's not very useful for mages, at least not as it is, but for non-Awakened it could be a good way to get stronger. Provided they can get the feel for how the Mana joins their body."
"And can dance better than Jamie here." Apricot adds.
"Be nice." Amelia says, but I can tell she's smiling on the inside.
"I don't, but I'm actually not far off." Deluca finally answers.
"Okay, I'll make you and Jamie some holograms, but you may have to figure out the timings on your own. The Mana flow isn't constant, that's why my speed changed so often." I explain and float some enchanting supplies over from my workbench. "Try separating and compressing the trace gasses in the air, that should push you over into Control." I create a blob of liquid co2 to show her what I mean. "And, the domain spell is in the library, top floor near the back." 'As are most of the spells I spent ages figuring out on my own.' I grouse to myself.
"Okay." She says quietly and I can feel her focusing on what I just did..
I slot a glass cube into each projector and test them out. "Here you go. I'd do more research, but I've already got too much on my plate as it is." I hold out the devices as light-based copies of Deluca and Jamie go through the routine next to each other. "What?" Our three guests are standing there slack-jawed while Amelia and Apricot are trying to hold back giggles.
"Um, how?" Deluca asks in an even quieter voice.
"It's just a modified Playback spell." I shrug. "Been working on these for a bit, and the idea for putting the scenes in glass came to me last night at dinner. Saved me a lot of hassle actually, the next best method I could come up with was stupid difficult." I stop the playback and toss them over.
"Lord Rumex..." The nascent cultivator clutches the projector to his chest like it's priceless.
"Don't worry about it." I wave it away. "So, was that all you came for? Because I've got something really cool to show you." I gesture to the car engine.
"Babe, maybe give them a minute to acclimatize to well... you before you overwhelm them again." Amelia says, not even trying to hide her smile.
"Ah, yeah." I rub the back of my head. "You guys want a snack or something? It's a bit early for lunch, but I could whip something up."
"I wouldn't say no to some more chocolate." Deluca snaps out of it first.
"Donuts?" I ask the girls.
""Donuts!"" They reply.
A couple minutes later and everyone's digging into a big platter full of various donuts. I'm munching away on a bear claw as Mittens comes out to see who the visitors are.
"Hey, little guy." I scoop him up. "Did you forgive us yet for leaving you at home last night?" He starts purring as I scratch under his chin. "Oh, listen to you purr."
"Does he get lonely on his own?" Deluca asks after swallowing a bite of an eclair.
"More like these two are spoiling him." The girls adopt fake innocent looks.
Devlen takes a deep, steadying breath after finishing off a couple frosted donuts. "I am almost afraid to ask, but what is it that you've been working on?" He eyes the engine warily.
"Hahaha. Oh, you're going to love this." I pass Mittens off to Amelia and he snuggles right into his favorite spot. Standing next to the engine, I continue. "You're just in time for the first test run too. Here's hoping it doesn't explode." Devlen flinches but all it does is rumble a little and let out a deep hum.
"Dev, you really need to relax." Deluca pats him on the arm as she walks over to examine the engine. "Mind walking me through whatever this thing is? I can sense a lot of magic, but I have no idea what's going on."
I conjure a see-through view of the v12, and explain how everything works. "And you say this only took three days to make?" Deluca asks a bit awed.
"The engine itself only took a couple hours, but all the design and testing took a bit longer. Would've had it done yesterday but I got distracted making armor." I toss the three samples on the work bench. "I'd show you how well they work, but I'm not allowed to fire siege weaponry in the backyard anymore." I say sheepishly.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Devlen pinches the ridge of his nose. "Are you saying these can... What is this?" He picks up the hexagonal plate.
"That's the only one that can actually stop a ballista bolt, it's mostly just steel..." I explain how it's made and watch his eyes light up. Seeing how excited he is, I add. "You'll need a good Fire and Water mage to work with you if you want to re-create that. And I'd recommend trying out different alloys, making amorphous steel is actually kinda hard..." I pause as a thought that should have hit me days ago finally catches up and smacks me right between the eyes. "Devlen?"
"Huh?" He looks up from the plate.
"You're an earth mage right? Tell me, does the Guild have any stockpiles of ores and metals? Or, at least know where to get a bunch of different ones?"
His "Of course." makes me want to face palm. "The vaults are open to you, all you had to do was ask. Also, I have detailed maps of all known mineral deposits in the country that you're welcome to copy."
"Nnh" I let out a little whimper.
"It's okay babe." Amelia rubs me on the back. "At least you saved that little girl and her grandpa."
"Speaking of supplies." Deluca chimes in. "We brought everything for the towers." She materializes a few crates next to the workbench.
"Thank you." I give her a little bow. "I was wondering about that stuff, didn't think you'd come to deliver it personally, though. Tell you what. Just for that, you can have the first test drive of the car." I build it before their eyes, morphing the work bench that was holding the engine into a wooden Rocket.
"Eeep." Deluca lets out a cute little scream of panic. "Would you please warn me before making the furniture come to life."
"Seconded." Devlen says from where he landed after jumping backwards.
"Sorry, the girls are used to it by now, so I didn't really think." I apologize with another bow. "But, here. Hop on in, it's not that hard, once you get used to it."
"Uhh, maybe I should watch you first." She prevaricates.
"Remember Apricot's first drive." Amelia reminds me, and I look over to where the pixie is trying to walk Jamie through the cultivation forms.
"Good point!" I nod and get in behind the wheel. "This'll make it a bit easier for me to fine tune the gearbox if I need to. Hey, Apricot, Jamie, want in on the inaugural ride?"
"Go without us" She waves me off. "He's starting to almost not suck. Almost." She sighs as he flubs it again.
"Alright, get in, we'll just go to the stables and back." They climb into the back seats, Deluca excited, and Devlen somewhat reluctant. I rev the engine and put it in gear, easing us out onto the street. "I still need to work out an automatic transmission, but for now you just take your foot off the go pedal, push in the clutch and shift gears." I demonstrate, quickly bringing us up to second and then third gear.
"What a clever arrangement." I can feel Devlen examining the gears with his Earth Magic. "You have some way to automate this shifting? Why would you want to?"
"So some untrained soldier doesn't jam the gears and destroy the transmission." I demonstrate causing everyone to wince at the grinding sound. "I'm not even close to figuring that out, but I've been playing around with planetary gear sets. And, I think that's the way to go." I conjure an image for him. "Just need to work out the right arrangement, but I'm more into plants than machines. So, it might take a while." Manual wasn't that hard to figure out, it's what I learned on and I had previously read up on how it worked. But, all I know about manual transmissions is that they use planetary gear sets, somehow.
"I'll ask around for you." Devlen nods at the image. "I know a few people who might be able to help."
"I'll put my team on it too." Deluca adds. "We all love problem solving, and this looks right up the alley of a couple of the more mechanically minded enchanters."
"Thank you, that's one less thing to worry about." We reach the stables and I stop the car. "Want to try taking us back, Deluca?"
"Yes, please." She practically jumps into the driver's seat as soon as Amelia and I get out to switch places with her and Devlen. "I've got to ask how do you plan to power these engines of yours? They're more efficient than I could have imagined, but they still need a mage to run."
"I can make them even better if I need to." I tell her. "With lighter metals and fewer cylinders I could probably push the efficiency up to ninety percent. So, any decent Fire Mage could keep a handful up and running without problem. Or, you could set up several large charging runes in a fire pit to fill up a giant Mana Stone, and have that fill up the cars. But, I actually have a solution that I hope to implement tonight, to let them run indefinitely."
"..." She sorta blanks out, and the car starts drifting to the side.
I look over to Amelia and raise my hands with a questioning look on my face. "Why does everyone keep doing that? My ideas aren't that far out there, I just follow logical conclusions where they lead." She just rolls her eyes and gives me a hug.
"Um, Deluca. Deluca!" Devlen starts to panic. "Watch where you're going!"
"I don't think I want to drive anymore." She says in a tiny voice before stopping the car.
"Deluca..." I hand her a chocolate bar. When in doubt, go for chocolate. "I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that I'm the first person to have these ideas. The complexity of Runescript alone shows that it can be used for so much more. I just happen to have a set of skills that let me rapidly test mine out." Seeing that she's still just sitting there, I continue. "If it makes you feel better; the charging device I have in mind requires a rare and limited resource."
"It's okay, Sorrel." She finally speaks. "I know that all the good enchanters left centuries ago, and took most of their knowledge with them. It's just seeing you accomplish so much, so quickly..." The trails off for a minute. "I'm jealous. There, I said it. I had hoped the phones were just a fluke, a flash of inspiration. But look at this." her voice rises as she holds up the hologram projector I gave her earlier. "You made this as a side project while you were working on this car engine. Do you know how many people have tried to make a Playback Rune? None, because we all thought is was impossible. Yet you made one in an evening." Her voice is nearly a shout before she takes a breath trying to calm herself down.
"I'm sorry-"
"No!" She cuts me off. "I am. And, I hate that I feel this way, but I do. I'll get over it soon, but for right now... could you... just not..." She gets out of the car and starts walking down the street towards the carriage they came in.
"Don't take it personally, Sorrel." Devlen tries to comfort me. "She'll be back to her old self soon."
"I hope so." I say to his back as he follows after her. "FFFFFFUUUCCCCCKKKK!!!!!" I shout into a soundproof bubble. "Gods dammit! I don't want to alienate the people I'm trying to help. I just don't have enough fucking time to introduce this shit gradually." Tears start running down my face as the two Guild mages and their friend drive off.
"I don't know what to say, Sorrel. I wish I had a way to make it all better, but you're going to turn over a lot of people's worlds. And, if you don't then war certainly will." Amelia holds me as I cry.
"Am I a coward?" I gasp out between sobs. "Is it so wrong to not want to bloody my hands? I could go and end this war tonight." I look her dead in the eyes. "Even if Cendassa had ten times as many Awakened, even if they were all as skilled as Oliver. I could still walk right over them and wipe out their royals in a heartbeat." I hang my head. "Tell me to do it and I will. Just please don't hate me afterwards, please."
"I could never hate you." She hugs me as tight as she can.
"Neither could I?" Apricot agrees from besides her, I didn't even notice her approach.
"It's not cowardly to not want to kill." Amelia kisses my tears away. "You more than anyone know exactly what death brings. A coward would just run away from a situation like this, but you're here doing your best to help. And, even though it's tearing you apart inside, you're still trying to save those Cendassan fools from themselves by making Larendath so strong that they have no choice but to turn back. I can't think of anything more brave."
"What happened?" Apricot asks, sandwiching me in hugs from the other side. Did they get upset that he doesn't wants to make weapons? Is that why they left like that?"
"That nothing of an enchanter got jealous that Sorrel figured out more in a day than she could in her entire lifetime." Amelia spits out a venomous answer.
"Please, don't." I beg. "She can't help the way she feels."
"Sorrel, sweetie." Apricot starts. "We, love you. But, shut the fuck up. That bitch made our man cry." She growls. "And, if she knew even a fraction of what you're holding back, she'd piss herself before crawling into a hole and never climb back out."
"Apricot-"
"No. You listen to me." She puts her finger over my lips. "I know I like to act the fool, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. I saw your face during Iron Man, I saw you work out how to re-create every weapon in just seconds. But, you didn't do that for the Jericho." She takes a deep breath.
"No, you looked down on it." She shivers. "Like destroying a mountain was nothing. That was the only time I've ever actually been afraid of you." Tears well up in her eyes and I try to speak, but she just presses her finger down harder. "I love you Sorrel, I will always love you. No matter what you do or don't do, but don't try to defend a twit like that. She doesn't deserve it." She replaces her finger with her lips.
***